Sir John Hall: Mike Ashley bought the club to advertise SportsDirect

I was just browsing through an article on Toon Talk when I came across this interview with Sir John Hall. Steve Wraith poised the question "Why Mike Ashley?"

This was Sir John Hall's reply:

Check out the full interview yourself at http://fansonline.net/newcastleunited/article.php?id=940

 

Sounds about right, his main aim is to improve sports direct and if Newcastle suffers thats just a side product!!!

 

We all know the real reason was he made the offer that suited John Hall best. Remember see him in the service station on the way down to Bolton after Ashley bought the club lauding his re-found popularity, bet no one sees him now on the way to games.

 

Been done...........posted yesterday morning!



Sir John Hall on why Ashley bought the club
On TOONTalk ...........interview with SJH.


They ( Sports Direct) wanted to market their sports goods in the Far East and would use the Club to help do this. To me it made sense to market the Club globally. It was a win win situation for Mike and the Club. We hadn’t done that. Over the 3 days I gave them a lot of advice. When they took over they put Chris Mort in to run things and went private. It was a good move. He’s not a fool and like Mike he came in with the best of intentions. His subsequent departure caused a few problems and Mike made a mistake listening to the likes of Paul Kelmsley at Spurs. I think he made another mistake bringing back Kevin Keegan. He was yesterdays man, like Dalglish at Liverpool now. It wasn’t a rational decision and he’s had to pay for it. The appointment of Dennis Wise upset Kevin and the inevitable fallout happened. I thought the local media handled the situation badly and the vilification with headlines such as ‘Get Out Of Toon’ were unjustified. I believe the damage has been done and I believe he will get out of the club when he can, but it will have to suit both the club and him. Mike has the wealth to challenge, but he’s been hurt. He needs to liaise with the fans.


Says it all really.

 

Exactly, the fact that Ashley didn't want to do due diligence was the main reason. Hall was scared about what the Malaysians would find.

 

This doesn't even make any sense.

1). It would have been far, FAR cheaper to buy huge sponsorship rights to the club instead of buying the actual club and also spending hundreds of millions to keep it going.

2). If he wanted to market Sports Direct to the far east, why did he turn down the chance of a lucrative pre-season in asia to have it in the US?

 

Neither of them are trustworthy, I would never take anything serious that either party has to say on anything.

 

I was trying to consider my post on this, John Hall and family along with Shepherd saddled the club with huge debt, whilst MA has made a complete cock of things he has at least taken the club private and tried to alleviate that debt burden and put in place a financial stability which few clubs seem to be trying to do, very little that MA does now is seen favourably however it's down as ever to the players for the season to come and I am not sure what JH is trying to do with this interview all I can say is HWTL.

 

don't forget he got a lovely payday when he sold the club