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Ashley alternative emerges
Newcastle United, 10:50, December 16, 2010 , | 1 Comment
Major investors in Qatar could be ready to launch a takeover bid to buy out unpopular Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley.
The Daily Mail are claiming the Qatar Foundation, who have just clinched a £125m sponsorship deal with Barcelona, have identified the Magpies as a Premier League club they would be interested in acquiring.
The foundation is a group of gold chip companies from the oil rich nation who are keen to raise the country's profile ahead of their successful 2022 World Cup campaign.
Their strategy so far has been to provide charitable investment like the link-up with Barcelona which will provide the Catalan giants with £25m over six years.
The government are backing the non-profit organisation which is mainly concerned with providing education projects across the Middle East.
Officially, Ashley has taken the club off the market, but the Buckinghamshire-based sportswear magnate may be willing to sell his controlling stake if a bidder is prepared to cough up at least £200m into a business that he has invested almost £300m.
However, despite his massive outlay, the United owner's reign has been fraught with controversy, most recently following his decision to sack Chris Hughton who guided the team to promotion only last season, and a parting of the ways could be in the best interests of all parties.
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This could be true because Newcastle Utd have done alot of charity work working with charities out in Qatar for a long time now. they have been helping the poorer kids to be safe and teaching them how to play football and funding money to keep these charity runing. most charitys in Qatar are run by the Qatar Royal Family also so the hook up is there. Plus Newcastle have got great hook ups with Spanish football teams from past transfers of players and alot of friendy games being played in pre-season. spain helped Qatar to win the world cup 12years from now plus Qatar payed somthing like £140m to put adds on barcelona's shirts. if this take-over is really true and works out then this will be great for us. Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd here we come :D hahaha "I wish but could come true lol". heres a link for Newcastles chartity work in Qatar in 2007 even tho they have done alot more after that :) www(.)nufcblog(.)com/2007/10/19/newcastle-united-spread-good-will-in-qatar/