Fan theory on why Ashley bought NUFC

Shug176

Well-Known Member
Decent read this

https://musingsofanufcfan.wordpress.com

My theory on why Ashley bought NUFC


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When Mike Ashley purchased Newcastle United FC it was said to be a spur of the moment deal, done so not for business but to allow the billionaire to “have some fun”. At the time it was made out that the deal was literally carried out in a couple of days.

“The deal was put to me on a Saturday. By the Monday, in advance of speaking to Sir John, I’d deposited the equivalent of money we hoped he would accept for his shares at the lawyers and on the Tuesday the deal was effectively done.

By Wednesday (May 23, 2007) the announcement was public and that was the first anyone, including the media, knew about it. Once I was told about it, it was done very quickly. Sir John was ready to act if I was and it was a very straightforward process.”

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If that is the case then why did Sports Direct register the domain name nufcdirect.com 6 months earlier?

In fact, forget the date of the purchase, why did Sports Direct purchase that domain name at all? Without the will of the club they would have been on very shaky ground setting up any online store etc using NUFC in the name.

Since 2012 that domain name has been used to run the NUFC online store through which all online sales of shirts, clothing and general tat have been funnelled. Every replica shirt (current retail price £59.99), beanie hat (£13) or SoccerStarz Rafa model (£3.50) that we buy from the “official” store goes through here.

And there lies the problem, the official site is just a front end to the Sports Direct website, they are one and the same just with a different look. Imagine a Sports Direct shop with a big cardboard front to make it look like the club shop!

Dont believe me? Have you ever compared any of the products between NUFC and SD? Everything is described, priced etc exactly the same.

Try this:

http://www.nufcdirect.com/puma-newc...-home-shirt-2017-2018-377410?colcode=37741040

http://www.sportsdirect.com/puma-ne...-home-shirt-2017-2018-377410?colcode=37741040

Or how about:

http://www.sportsdirect.com/team-knit-hat-mens-900013?colcode=90001310

http://www.nufcdirect.com/team-knit-hat-mens-900013?colcode=90001310

Now try this one

http://www.nufcdirect.com/team-club-3-pack-air-fresheners-840136?colcode=84013640

http://www.sportsdirect.com/team-club-3-pack-air-fresheners-840136?colcode=84013618

And now remove the last part of the URL….

http://www.sportsdirect.com/team-club-3-pack-air-fresheners-840136

Hmmmm Rangers….Spooky eh?

Try it, for yourself, go on nufcdirect and pick a product, then change the http://www.nufcdirect.com in the URL to http://sportsdirect.com and I’ll guarantee you’ll pull up the same page on their site just looking very slightly different. Word for word every description matches, every image is the same. Most importantly the prices are exact in every case.

Whats happening is that the nufcdirect site uses a subset of the Sports Direct product range. Basically anything related to NUFC is displayed on the nufcdirect site. Other than that though everything else is Sports Direct. Ordering, warehouse, delivery etc etc. You are even given a £5 Sports Direct voucher if you get your purchase delivered to one of their stores!

Remember this from 2013? The decision to sell Rangers items on NUFC site caused a kick off….Except I dont think there ever was a decision to add them, it was a mistake caused by the fact that someone cocked up when writing the description and started the 2nd para with “The Newcastle United jacket sports a traditional…..” meaning it was picked up and included within the NUFC range by the website.

This link can be proven by another look at the nufcdirect who.is record however this time select the DNS tab and heres where it gets a tad technical.

Look to the bottom of the list and you’ll see a CNAME record showing

CNAME 599 others.sportsdirect.edgekey.net

Funnily enough, if you view the Rangers who.is record you’ll see

CNAME 599 others.sportsdirect.edgekey.net

A CNAME Record allows you to redirect a URL to a totally different site without it being obvious. Once you’re redirected to Sports Direct the website sees where you’ve come from and styles the site accordingly, narrowing the products down to the allowed subset (ie anything containing NUFC or Newcastle United). All the time leaving the domain name and any product URL the same as you visited originally.

A check of the sites code shows that the code is the same as well, examples such as..
src="/DesktopModules/SportsDirect/SharedControls/JavaScript/jquery.bxslider.min.js"
litter the HTML for nufcdirect.com.

This is exactly what happens when a company offers their products for sale via white label ie the ability to sell a third parties goods with a site that looks like its your own. In all white label solutions the referring domain (in this case nufcdirect.com) receives a small commission from every purchase.

When MA bought into Rangers there was uproar at the fact he negotiated a deal to see Sports Direct take over the merchandising of the club. That deal absolutely screwed Rangers seeing their share of the takings reduced to only 7%. MA owned 9% of Rangers and managed to do that.

He owns 100% of NUFC, there is zero chance that hes not doing the same thing (or even potentially worse) here. Why wouldnt he?

SO what does that mean in terms of actual cash? well based on a £59.99 shirt sale, assuming NUFC get the same 7% commission structure as Rangers did then you’d be looking at £4.20 per shirt coming NUFCs way. In 2010 the extremely knowledgable Swiss Ramble quoted the club share of a shirt sale in their own stores as being €10 – 15, that was 7 year ago when an adult shirt cost €46 (£40) so if we take €10 thats approx 22% from every shirt sale.

SportingIntelligence.com had an article on shirt sales which stated that NUFC sold an average 100,000 shirts per year. Based on those figures NUFC would have received a nice straight forward €1m under the standard standard commission structure. From a 7% SD rate that drops to €315k. Multiply that by the last 5 years and you’re looking at over €3m.

In itself, thats not a massive amount however thats shirt sales alone, we’re talking every piece of tat, scarf, kids gear, garden gnome, souvenirs etc etc. Just as importantly to Ashley howver it boosts SDs standing, increases share prices and the overall value of his company while reducing ours. Add in the free advertising, payment of PR fees to his own company, movement of assets from NUFC to St James’ holdings etc and he’s not doing too badly at all.

That is of course, assuming we even get 7% theres nothing to say that NUFCs cut from this isn’t a big fat zero.

One thing thats always said about football ownership is that it rarely makes a profit and thats what I believe Ashley wants. Think about it, you have 2 businesses, 1 is massively profitable the other makes nowt therefore why not take some of the profitable bit of business 2 and move it to business 1 meaning the 2nd makes a bigger loss while the 1st a bigger profit. Ashley then includes the loss of NUFC in his personal tax return meaning 47% of that loss is recovered by paying less tax!

So, if you’re still reading this, THAT is why I believe Mike Ashley bought NUFC and more worryingly why he has no intention of selling.
 
Of all the scumbags involved with our club in the last five years Ashley is the one who enrages me the most, a truly vile individual who I wish nothing but misery for. I can't help but feel his involvement was deeper than we ever knew, he is not a stupid man.

We are finally free of his clutches, thanks t0 the efforts of the support and the Board but he was days away from having security over our stadium. The thought that we were so close to becoming nothing other than his plaything is sickening.
 
Wow, scary reading that. Feel sorry for the Newcastle fans, they have no chance of ousting him.
 
We must have been close to him owning all our images, Stadium and Auchenhowie. We would never have recovered ( We would be playing to under 15k by now). Whoever sold shares to T3B and King must have had a wee bit of our interests at heart after Somers disgraced himself at the AGM.
 
I fear we still have his stench around us as remember "Blue Pitch" and "Margherita" are shareholders in Limbo but are still major shareholders today.

He has played a long game with us and until every shareholder is publicly known the suspicion remains
 
That deal absolutely screwed Rangers seeing their share of the takings reduced to only 7%. MA owned 9% of Rangers and managed to do that.

that was scary as fck, thank god hes gone
 
Wonder how much cash he has been able the drain out the club while he was "having fun" as the ops article suggests,
 
Your average man on the street probably still thinks he cares if NUFC are successful.

He doesn't care about football in the slightest. He just saw us and NUFC as massive advertising and merchandising opportunities.

Thankfully we cottoned on to this. It's too late for NUFC unless he gets a silly offer from a sheik.
 
he's completely right, there will be all kinds of crippling contracts in place ashley is only interested in what he can get out of it. Unfortunately for them as he owns 100% he can do what he wants and there is no way to stop him.

So glad we are not still reading posts like this about us
 
The wider Newcastle fan base need to wake up and stop lining fatboys pockets

NUFC could survive with no fans, no retail bought. The Sky money dwarfs all other income. As a fan, you support the team. That's why I believe you should go to away games, even if you're lining the pockets of other teams.
 
Excellent read.

He had no fight from Newcastle fans etc, and has been able to run riot. Thank God we had King etc to put him down, and more importantly, fans who were able to boycott effectively.
 
We must have been close to him owning all our images, Stadium and Auchenhowie. We would never have recovered ( We would be playing to under 15k by now). Whoever sold shares to T3B and King must have had a wee bit of our interests at heart after Somers disgraced himself at the AGM.


thatsecond loan was the clincher iirc that was drawn down he had control, for fck all in the scheme of things
 
Horrible horrible man make no mistake that was huge what Dave king and co did to get rid of that mob my wee 4 year guy has never had a Rangers strip if only I could get one!!!
 
That's an excellent article. He's hit the nail on the head with why Rangers stuff ended up on the Newcastle site.
 
The wider Newcastle fan base need to wake up and stop lining fatboys pockets
I made that point on the old.board, and a poster called.magpieger went mental. He stated all they could.do was keep supporting the team

They still don't get it. I actually think they enjoy being the victims
 
Newcastle fan and workmate of mine telling me there nufc merchandise ie training tops/jackets that now have rangers badge on label. Either one almighty fcuk up by someone or sportsdirect trying to get rid of stock somehow.
 
We came so close to this, the Board & three bears will forever have my gratitude.

I don't think it's too controversial to say Ashley was in from the start. It's still not clear where Green got his £5.5m, and remember Ashley was at a party in Glasgow with Whyte pre-admin.
 
Makes for grim reading for the Newcastle fans, they have 0 chance of getting shot of him anytime as long as they are bouncing up and down the divisions making him a ton of money he won't be going anywhere. They really need to boycott big time to get shot of the fat pric*
 
Ashley is an absolute Cancer. He's eaten NUFC alive from the inside.

We were in line to be just another in a long list of underperforming businesses bought for a fraction of their true value, destabilised and then asset stripped. USC anyone...?
 
I made that point on the old.board, and a poster called.magpieger went mental. He stated all they could.do was keep supporting the team

They still don't get it. I actually think they enjoy being the victims

It must be soul destroying supporting them. They're a team that could regularly be competing for a europa league spot and an occasional cup run if they were run properly.

They have all the marks of a yo-yo club until the get a new owner
 
We should always be grateful to King and the 3 bears for having the courage and know how to fight this parasite.
 
I know Rangers fans, one well heeled at that, that thinks MA is our answer :eek:

I despair at times, then I see Newcastle fans :D
 
They really need to boycott big time to get shot of the fat pric*

I wonder why they haven't done this already? I suppose they don't have a Dave King on the board to fight from that angle, so boycotting may not be as effective if he can screw the club in other ways.
 
It must be soul destroying supporting them. They're a team that could regularly be competing for a europa league spot and an occasional cup run if they were run properly.

They have all the marks of a yo-yo club until the get a new owner
Ashley's not the only owner to take the piss. Remember.Shepherd? They seem to attract them
 
I fear we still have his stench around us as remember "Blue Pitch" and "Margherita" are shareholders in Limbo but are still major shareholders today.

He has played a long game with us and until every shareholder is publicly known the suspicion remains
This is the bit that gets me with McCoist abstaining at last year's AGM. We could have sidelined all these charlatans at the same time if the resolution had been passed.
 
We must have been close to him owning all our images, Stadium and Auchenhowie. We would never have recovered ( We would be playing to under 15k by now). Whoever sold shares to T3B and King must have had a wee bit of our interests at heart after Somers disgraced himself at the AGM.

Yes - we'll never know how much trouble the Club would've been in had King and T3B not got those shares.
 
NUFC could survive with no fans, no retail bought. The Sky money dwarfs all other income. As a fan, you support the team. That's why I believe you should go to away games, even if you're lining the pockets of other teams.

So just because sky give them money, they should queue up and hand over 60 notes for a shirt to this fat lady's front bottom and say or do nothing?

What about self-respect? Principles?

Come on man.
 
Concern number one for Newcastle fans should have been the fact that Ashley was a Spurs fan. I think that says it all. Imagine a sheep fan buying Rangers - it would be done for one thing only - making money from the fans. Ashley in a Newcastle strip was all an act to keep up the pretence. He is ripping the Geordies off like he ripped us off and thank fk King not only had bigger tanks but managed to drive them better, shoot them better and outplay the living daylights out of him.
 
So just because sky give them money, they should queue up and hand over 60 notes for a shirt to this fat lady's front bottom and say or do nothing?

What about self-respect? Principles?

Come on man.

We got rid of Ashley because Dave King had something to destroy him, nothing else. Anybody who thinks our boycotting of his retail made him change his mind, is deluded. He would have been happy if we never spent any money. Why did he sell his shares to friendly people ? He had no choice.
All I'm saying is the Sky money dwarfs all other income in NUFC.
 
We got rid of Ashley because Dave King had something to destroy him, nothing else. Anybody who thinks our boycotting of his retail made him change his mind, is deluded. He would have been happy if we never spent any money. Why did he sell his shares to friendly people ? He had no choice.
All I'm saying is the Sky money dwarfs all other income in NUFC.

You're saying that fans have no power when money is there so what's the point.

All I'm saying is I think that's a poor attitude from a Rangers supporter
 
Tend to agree that a boycott by toon fans won't help in that it won't hit his pocket by 'that much'
Revenue from shirts and even gate money will be a fair whack, but will still be dwarfed by tv money
 
If the fans boycott, the team will surely falter and head for relegation. The fans have to create an atmosphere that is ugly and hostile to Ashley and the board. They are going nowhere and never will with the fat charlatan as an owner.

It took us a while to get the majority on song and fighting Ashley. Newcastle as a club are cruising along in 3rd gear, they are only slightly underperforming as compared to normal. Another relegation may get the penny to finally drop and make the majority of fans question his motives.
 
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