NUFC to be bought?

It seems that the Daily Mail, both in print and online (here), have picked up an interesting lead in the ongoing saga of who will be the next owners of Newcastle United. Rumours are that an American consortium, as well as the United Bank of Switzerland, will table a £227m bid for the club. This equates to 93p per share (with shares closing yesterday at 75.5p) and would make the likes of Freddie Shepherd and The Hall Family around £68m richer. However, stories denying the acceptance, and even the tabling of the bid have now started to appear (BBC’s take on it can be found here) and so it seems we may be no nearer finding a new owner.

For me I can only see the positives in getting Shepherd out of the club. For far too long he’s had control and I feel it’s time for a change. It’s funny that other Newcastle fans have pointed out how much money he puts into the club. What they seem to fail to realise is where that money comes from (funnily enough, the club), and who puts money into the club? The sponsors and the fans. At 18p per share above the current trading price I can’t see how they could refuse this offer. Rumours are also circulating that, if the deal goes through, Roeder will be given £20m as a war chest to buy in some new talent. If this is true then this deal needs to be done sooner rather than later so that Roeder has time to deal in the January transfer window.

Whilst we’re continuing to prove that you can get by without a great depth to your squad (we have 15 squad players out injured at the moment) we still need more players. We need to be in the Premiership next season as the revenue from Sky increases dramatically (talk of £50m to each Premiership club next season) and this could be the cash injection that we need.

So where does this leave us? Well I think I’m amongst the majority of fans who feel that it is time for Shepherd to go. If he really has the love for the club that he claims, he must be able to see that accepting this offer is the right thing to do. Also, the £68m profit for him should be enough of a temptation to see him sell. I just hope he does the (semi)decent thing and sells…