Rob Lee has spoken exclusively to Football FanCast and highlighted the numerous excuses and potential buyers that have come and gone under the reign of Mike Ashley, who he finds it difficult to believe actually wants to sell the club.
Ashley has wanted out of Newcastle United for a number of years now with something always ending up blocking a potential deal, with the latest barrier being the Premier League.
However, Lee thinks if Ashley wanted to get out of the club so badly he’d make more of an effort to get it sold and stop allowing the barriers to get in they way.
Ashley and the Premier League are currently going through arbitration to try and find out once and for all if PIF is directly linked to the state of Saudi Arabia, because Premier League chief executive Richard Masters and the rest of the league don’t want clubs to be owned by countries.
Will Newcastle get new owners this year?
Yes, this is the year!
No, Ashley’s here to stay!
It seems like it will be another long and drawn out year for Newcastle fans who surely long for the day they have new owners.
Lee isn’t sure that’s in the near future though as he questioned Ashley’s willingness to sell the club in an exclusive interview with Football FanCast.
“Is that why he hasn’t spent in the last God knows how many years?”, Lee asked when talking about whether or not the potential takeover made Ashley not spend any money during the January transfer window.
He added: “Newcastle’s a saga, it goes on too long. Takeovers happen, they go ahead.
“Newcastle have been in takeovers the last five, six years. For whatever reasons, it’s numerous reasons that they never go through.
“There are always stories come about, people haven’t got the money and the Premier League have stopped it. God knows how many stories over the last six or seven years of different owners.
“The way I look at it is very simple. If I’ve got something I want to sell, and you’ve got buyers then you sell it, providing you don’t put loads of barriers in the way you’ll sell it.
“Yeah, it just tells me that does he want to sell it as much as he says he wants to sell it?”
Only Ashley will know if he’s serious about getting out of Newcastle and if he’s confident of the PIF takeover going through which is lead by Amanda Staveley who has attempted to buy the club three times before this.