The Newcastle United takeover, progress, or lack of it – and the curious 'Sound of Silence'

“Hello darkness, my old friend… I’ve come to talk with you again.”
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It's the subject no one dares discuss, for fear of castigation or worse, excommunication. But the information hits feed an uncontrollable urge, an obsession, an addiction.

People talking without speaking, we’ve seen plenty of that. People hearing without listening – a modern day debilitation, stoked by a less than transparent, lonely social media. ‘We’re all mates’, you say, but you’ve never touched, or felt, or experienced together outside of screen time. Their handle, the thumbnail, their three-dimensional portrayal on a two-dimensional plane is all you know. The backdrop? Your dining room wall and unwashed dishes.

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The Newcastle United takeover is the ‘not that rubbish again’ topic, the ‘shut up about that, it's not happening’ one-way conversation on social media. Yet, we all read, we all click, we all hope. You may say it’s dead, it makes you feel better, but deep down you know it isn’t, yet. Well, not until it’s properly dead, like Premier League rejected, all legal avenues exhausted, full walkaway dead.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in a virtual session in the capital Riyadh, on January 28, 2021. - Salman said today that the kingdom will sell more shares of energy giant Aramco in the coming years, following the world's biggest public listing in 2019. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP) (Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in a virtual session in the capital Riyadh, on January 28, 2021. - Salman said today that the kingdom will sell more shares of energy giant Aramco in the coming years, following the world's biggest public listing in 2019. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP) (Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman speaks during the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in a virtual session in the capital Riyadh, on January 28, 2021. - Salman said today that the kingdom will sell more shares of energy giant Aramco in the coming years, following the world's biggest public listing in 2019. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP) (Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)

The elephant in the room, or Central Park Zoo, is the PIF, PCP and Reubens takeover – one for the Simon and Garfunkel aficionados there, although I realise I’m probably not playing to the crowd. “Elephants are kindly, but they're dumb."

That is something I have, as a writer, been accused of – playing to the crowd. Critics have crawled from under their bridges to call me dumb, too. No troubled water here.

Newcastle United fans yearn for change. The region prays for it – investment, a future, a horizon beyond the Mike Ashley-tarnished landscape.

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So feed the masses with exactly what they want to hear, they’ll love you for it, right? Wrong.

Feed the masses fake news for clicks, false narratives and more and you’ll get found out very quickly. Any suggestion otherwise is an insult to the United fanbase and its collective intellect. No one tracks planes or Companies House better imo.

#CANS, ‘takeover fatigue’ & Cantervale

When the vision of a Saudi-bejeweled magpie taking flight softly crept into the black and white consciousness, planting seeds of awakening the last great sleeping giant of English football, it was anything but silence on Tyneside.

People bowed and prayed, to the neon God they made. Admittedly, some of it was cringey.

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A burning desire, trampled for 13 years, began to rise – and like a volcano it erupted in a call to #CANS. Sadly, COVID-safe ones in this sterile, human contact-less existence.

Spring turned to summer, despair turned to dreams. Then, heartbreak. The road back to scepticism and acceptance was a tough one for many. Much tougher than before.

And that’s where we lie, in a world of denial, surrounded by doubt. Some, more perceptive than I, call this ‘takeover fatigue’.

Some say the deal is gone, up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Others think it was always a fantasy – I do worry about these people. Some hope it can be revived, while others have never wavered in their feeling we’ll see Amanda Staveley and husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi in the St James’ Park directors’ box one day. I respect all of those views, apart from the fantasy one.

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Yet still, more than 12 months after the news of Saudi riches eyeing an outpost on the Tyne unhelpfully broke in the US financial pages, we remain within the sound of silence.

No Saudi statements – they’ll never come unless the deal is done. They’ll never allow themselves to be publicly embarrassed again. No PCP talk, nothing from the club – no words will be spoken unless beneficial to the deal.

Even a Companies House update for Staveley’s Cantervale Holdings Limited – a company with links to the deal – dated this morning brought more deafening silence, three pages of it. The highlight of which, read: “CANTERVALE HOLDINGS LIMITED: Confirmation statement made on 21 January 2021 with no updates”...

Legal arguments ‘cocked and locked’

"Fools said I, you do not know, silence like a cancer grows*...”

(*Reads better if you say it in tune.)

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With silence comes doubt, we fill the void with our fears and expectations, as underwhelming and damaging as they may be. Never letting ourselves get carried away. Once bitten, twice shy.

We’re used to silence, we’ve been kept in the dark for near 14 years – but is this blackout a good or bad thing?

“Hear my words that I might teach you.”

For those out there buying into the idea that we are in the ‘calm before the storm’ stage, you’re only half right.

The various legal challenges being put to the Premier League are ready and waiting. Cocked and locked.

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None of them, however, are straight-forward. I speak in the plural very deliberately here. Nothing in legal is straight-forward.

One could impact another, positively or negatively. The wrong gun being fired could kill the whole thing. Pull the trigger too soon and the last 12 months, the near year of planning previous to that, and the countless millions spent already, could, theoretically, have counted for nothing.

The legal minds wait – with Nick De Marco the Ashley ringleader and chief agitator – and plot their next move, every pawn in this expensive game as important as the next. For what it’s worth, the Premier League, too, have their legal ducks in a row – and are equally as confident in their position and arguments. Legal gears continue to grind in confidence, away from black and white glare.

So we must wait. So too, do the players with skin in the game. They are as frustrated as you or I.

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One thing that would see things accelerate in the right direction, I’m told, would be movement on the legal cases in the Middle East between beIN/Qatar and the Saudi authorities. If dominoes drop then certain legal hurdles will fall with them, making a deal much easier to strike, without the need for legal battles and arbiters.

If that doesn’t happen then it will likely be full steam ahead with arbitration. If arbitration fails then the process could become a long, drawn out one, next seen on the court steps. And with that, I’d imagine, the silence would end, so too, the dreams.

The waiting, the silence is, at this stage, not positive, nor negative. The wait, however, will not go on forever.

The false dawn – but the dream lives on

Positive progress, some genuine movement, had been hoped for in January – that ship has long sailed. But so too has some of the pressure. The bi-annually unfulfilled expectation of a transfer window, the seemingly unstoppable Newcastle juggernaut accelerating towards the doom of another bottom three battle, all allayed somewhat by two positive results in eight days – and one very crucial appointment.

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Ghodoussi celebrated the Everton victory like a fan, starved too of the joy three points can bring for 11-winless matchdays. “Get in!!!” he tweeted. He felt it, just like us.

Things may not be happening as fast as anyone wants, but still faith lives on.

“And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains… Within the sound... Of silence.”

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