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Whenever we were linked with “dubious” characters-Joey Barton and Ched Evans for instance-the horror was almost unanimous. Imagine being owned by a company which is based in a country with an appalling civil rights record-that would have to seriously improve before I would be happy.

But this is the point. Is it fair on Foulger for the value of his shares to be waived. You would have a different view if it happened Jimbo. That's why you're my favourite poster. You moan about the owners, the board, management, players, academy and fans. Yet you choose to support the club. I bet you go round ASDA putting stuff you don't like in your trolley too...

It is not only a question of change. It is a question of what you change from. Leeds start from Bates, Cellino, Radrizzani....so QSI is a wonderful step into great riches and ambition for them. We start from well-meaning, deeply-connected fans who love the club and want the best for it. They openly don’t have the funds to compete in the actualité of the Premier League, though in many ways they - in their purity of love and intention - are what many fans of other clubs would dream of. I used to live round the corner from Maine Road and that includes many Manchester City fans too by the way. A rich Delia is perfection of course. QSI is another compromise in a long list of small hop compromises that lead somewhere you may never intend (as criminal organisations all around the world know well). In many ways you have the Faustian bargain right here - Jack Barak speaks with decency - something pure that is unlikely to compete at the top level vs something rather impure and detached (‘sport-washing’ at best). Though purity can be evangelical and hold things back on angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin ideology, whilst if you believe in rehabilitation, then even ‘sport-washing’ is at least a ‘flagstone on the road to Democracy’. We start from an increasingly rare position of purity however. Once that is compromised it may not find its way back. ‘The second million is always honest’ as a wise Russian once told me. Parma

Would Webber and Farke even still be here if we were bought out by a huge consortium like that? I imagine they might have their own thoughts about how to do things! There are so many potential variables that it's hard to give an answer, really. Oh and don't worry about Leeds. They'll still find a way to spaff things up.

Broadband is at this point a utility like water and power. Most large employers won't look at CV's sent through the post or delivered by hand- you need to go through their online ATS system. If we want people getting back into work they need internet access. I'm not sure I fully agree with the Labour policy but having internet access has become pretty much essential to modern living.

Although I have to say, the whole thing was dross from start to finish.

How many times did Johnson get "get brexit done" in?

I know it shouldn't be a shock but I'm still surprised by the pure cynicism of CCHQ rebranding as 'fact check uk' on twitter for the debate. Brazenly dishonest.

Not at all surprised. Bill made a thread, something like the "sack race" it was called, and I said Pochettino. This was on the basis of a Spurs fan I know whining the whole summer about all things bad at Tottenham. It's not been a happy place for some while.

They’ve been poor in the league for a long time now and, to be honest, after that first couple of seasons where they challenged for the title, they’ve stagnated really. He hasn’t looked overly interested either for a little while. To Man Utd or Real Madrid in the summer would be my guess for him. Mourinho and Howe mentioned as favourites - Mourinho doesn’t really fit their way of playing. Howe, I’d like to see given a crack at it, but not sure he’ll get the chance.

is Steptoe and Son on tonight?

Guys there is some good stuff in this thread but why do you all have to spoil it with the personal attacks?

It is not the same as shares traded on a stock market. Jim Smith is right that most fans' shares are worthless, or at least that they are not owned with a view to making money, although Jim cannot assume that all such shareholders would be happy to have their investment, however token, wilfully devalued. Equally he is right to make an exception for S&J's majority holding, and perhaps Foulger's. The former controls the club, and the latter might come into play as far as that is concerned, while it might also be expected by Foulger* to have some monetary value, for him or others. S&J passing the shares to Tom of itself would not devalue them. While they remain in the Smith family in some way their value essentially depends on their being the controlling stake, and how a would-be buyer would value the club, based on performance, assets, potential etc, rather than who specifically owns them. *As I understand it Foulger has sold or passed on most of his shares to family members or such like, but has kept the voting rights.

Ha. No probz, Herman. Ignore my PM from yesterday, by the way— your post crossed over with it

Keep trying, you'll get the hang of being funny eventually.

"Yap Yap Yap".... 🐩.....

A point I have made before, probably more than once, and probably every time Jim has put the idea forward...🤓 And that is leaving aside the fact that Jim's suggested figure of £5m would be not so much 'an absolute bargain' as an insult to the intelligence of shareholders.

It's from the bible. ("The love of money is the root of all evil...)

Well there you have it King. Norwich fans, decent couple, looked ideal investors in Norwich - indeed accepted and welcomed by Delia and Michael - though now you are dissecting their wealth source and suggesting it didn’t meet high enough moral standards. I don’t necessarily say you are wrong in your observation, though you certainly throw into sharp relief how narrow the pot would be to match the decent and morally clean wealth of Delia and the multiple other good things she represents. Parma

UK governments do business with the Saudis and other despicable regimes because of mega-money arms deals. 'This guy', as others have said, is in effect the Qatari government, and buying football clubs is by way of trying to launder the country's reputation rather than instigating a process of change for the better. So definitely not in this case, but then I would not want NCFC in effect owned by any country. Too many potential pitfalls.

If you want to know what our ...(Labour/SNP/Liberal/Democrat) .....polices are it’s very simple - we are “Investing for our future, not destroying our country for the exclusive gain of the few”

They're going to miss out on Magic Grandpa's announcement of nationalising Mr. Whippy. 😀

There are very few multi millionaires with spotless records. How you view these things depends on what you're willing to tolerate. The owners of Man City have not only made the club a huge success but have also invested heavily in the local area, upgrading facilities and in general taking a run-down, crime-ridden part of Manchester and making it a significantly nicer placer to live. On the other hand, they are linked to a highly oppressive regime with a more than questionable human rights records. In the same city the Glazers are much less popular as they've stacked the club with debt are seen as pariahs. However, they've not got anywhere near the same baggage as the owners of City.

Just continuing the every thing is better with more money theme, almost every other thread gets back to it, so i thought I'd mention it here too.

Am I supposed to be Hairy Crank? I've never claimed any of those things!

Isn't the problem that oppressive regimes are 'sports-washing' their reputations with the purchase of sports teams and sporting events, around the world. I understand it is a part of life but we don't have to be happy with it. To be honest I would rather they didn't, Leeds is more 'up their street'.

If it is as it appears , this is game changing money. I saw Man City play in Div 3.

So all people in that Country have to be viewed in the same light as the people that run it? Not sure thatthe owners of PSG can be accused of human rights abuses. On a footballing level it would be very exciting for any club.

Jez Moxey and Neil Doomcaster spring to mind.

I fancy a film tonight instead, probably this one.

GPB, going by the accounts I assume this was a condition imposed by Axa, or certainly agreed by them, although strangely it was not mentioned in the previous set of accounts when the restructuring was first outlined, with 2022 as the assumed date. I cannot say for sure, but generally, after a period in which investors/lenders etc had been keen to get into football, by then this was a time when they wanted the h*ll out.

I would say that arguably there is a strong moral case for doing that since the fans are the ones who are funding the club!

To be fair, with younger players you do have to look at what you already have and be sure that another guy would be an improvement - it’s a difficult call and you’ll never get them all right.

Abraham is an interesting case- him and Chelsea are actually huge beneficiary's of the transfer ban they've been put under. In my opinion he has been good enough to be playing a role at Chelsea for a couple of seasons now.

Its really hard to judge the academy at the moment I think because there is inevitably a lag between making changes and those players starting to come through to challenge for first team places. The results of the U23s and U18s have certainly been a little disappointing but I think are a little bit distorted by the fact that so many players are out on loan which means we have younger players in the U23s and presumably also has a knock on effect on the younger sides. I assume that the target is that of the players recently brought in and/or brought through we will see 1 or 2 a season challenging for first team action in 2 or 3 years time. my slight concern is who will be challenging in the shorter term should we sell a couple of the current first team youngsters. Idah perhaps, but i'm not sure who else is anywhere near ready (especially if we are premier league) and I've been a little bit disappointed at both the levels we seem to be loaning players out to and also that very few of our players out on loan seem to be getting regular rave reviews, I must confess I;ve not really heard how Gilmour is doing so he may be the one to watch but I note that Power has not been getting in the team up in Scotland (even though their fans seem to rate him) and Spyrou (who I've always thought looked very promising) has just had his loan at Chesterfield cut short after an unsuccessful loan at Wrexham and Bushiri is not getting a regular game at Blackpool. I would hope that as a premier league club, our young players would be able to play regularly and cope at league 1 level at the very least as otherwise one has to question whether they are going to make the grade long term for a "yo-yo" club like us. I would certainly like to see Idah given the second half of the season on loan this season with a view to preparing him to play in our first team next season in the championship if we go down.

It certainly does if you're poor.

Sterling is a class player who if fit should always start.. I’m more concerned about the lack of class central defenders even Mcguire does not look as good as he was before he got his big move.

Isn't that a complete red herring? The road network is 'free' in this country, as is the health service and nearly everyone seems to think that is a good thing. But of course none of these things, including 'free' broadband are actually free they are simply paid for by a different mechanism, i.e. taxes. Personally I'm not a great fan of the Labour plan for broadband but your objections to it seem pretty ridiculous given the extremely poor fist that private enterprise has made of providing the service, added to their very poor performance in providing other public utilities - they have unambiguously failed in the provision of good and reasonably priced public services, spectacularly in many cases (railway franchises, private prisons, in fact Home Office contracts in general, being obvious examples). Labour's 20th century nationalisation model is, like most of their thinking, well out of date but there are certainly more modern public ownership models which could be applied to most of our public services which would be a huge improvement over the current private sector rip off.

I’ve come back to this post several times Corkie, and I still have no idea what you’re on about!

I find it a bit weird that people back somebody that we know so little about, who has no track record in business, no wealth that we know of, and we have heard so little from... Just because he shares a surname and a little bit of DNA with our current owner. The argument seems to be that rich people tend to not take clubs forward so let's get somebody skint because that's the left field anti-football thing to do. The Queen has done an excellent job of being our head of state, but thank the gods that Prince Andrew isn't the succession plan. Is there any precedent for this type of inheritance of a big football club? Blackpool possibly the only one I can think of. At Blackpool Owen Oyston was always of dubious character, but it was Karl Oyston who went to war with the clubs fans, let the ground fall into a state of disrepair and took them down 3 divisions. Leicester different because the son inherited the entire business empire and was already running half of it.

Bit of an OTT reaction, he’s not wishing them dead or anything, just a curious discussion as to what happens when they retire!

So we had to wait for tonight for our last result. It was Kathy's pick to. Anyway, Italy won 9-1 meaning Kathy's now 15/15 in our PUPs league. That was also Zips last selection. Typically for this season both accas had 5 wins and 1 draw. Fine margins for sure. The stats show 22/31(1 void) 71% winning PUPs and 14/20 winning selections (1 void) 70%. Most profitable pick was Molly Windley's Rangers U21s at 1.47. Here are the latest PUPs league tables... PUP Wins Picks Win% Profitability Kathy 15 15 100% 4.29 Parma 14 15 93% 0.59 Diesel Doris 13 15 87% 3.81 Kiwiscot 13 15 87% 2.49 PurpleCanary 13 15 87% 2.08 Cosmic Twin 13 15 87% 2.06 Diane 12 15 80% 1.8 Til1010 12 15 80% 0.23 Jellytot 9 12 75% 0.67 Lincsy 11 15 73% 2.24 Lessingham 8 11 73% 1.68 Lappinitup 10 15 67% 5.74 Hector Brockelbank 10 15 67% 3.04 Molly Windley 10 15 67% -0.83 Hammond1612 10 15 67% -1.76 Graham Humphrey 8 12 67% -1.13 SwindonCanary 6 9 67% 0.87 Lake District Canary 9 14 64% -0.88 DJ11 9 14 64% -1.85 Feedthewolf 9 14 64% -2.19 GMF 8 13 62% -0.12 Hansterbubble 8 13 62% -1.25 Mr Apples 9 15 60% -1.84 MMMK 6 10 60% -0.4 Mandie Moo 6 10 60% -1.78 Greg 8 14 57% -3.48 LeedsCanary 5 9 56% 3.05 Vazzza 5 9 56% 1.93 Twidio 5 9 56% -1.83 First Wazzock 6 11 55% -2.38 WWIAFTM 8 15 53% -0.56 Crabbycanary 7 14 50% 0.6 Fenway Frank 6 12 50% 1.7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PUP Wins Picks Win% Profitability Lappinitup 10 15 67% 5.74 Kathy 15 15 100% 4.29 Diesel Doris 13 15 87% 3.81 LeedsCanary 5 9 56% 3.05 Hector Brockelbank 10 15 67% 3.04 Kiwiscot 13 15 87% 2.49 Lincsy 11 15 73% 2.24 PurpleCanary 13 15 87% 2.08 Cosmic Twin 13 15 87% 2.06 Vazzza 5 9 56% 1.93 Diane 12 15 80% 1.8 Fenway Frank 6 12 50% 1.7 Lessingham 8 11 73% 1.68 SwindonCanary 6 9 67% 0.87 Wooster 3 10 30% 0.85 Jellytot 9 12 75% 0.67 Crabbycanary 7 14 50% 0.6 Parma 14 15 93% 0.59 Til1010 12 15 80% 0.23

They're giving them away over here Franko, three for a euro, full sized bars too.

Delia's mum reached her century this year, if I'm not mistaken, and she still goes to games. There's no reason why Delia hasn't got another 20 years in her yet. Don't panic, Mr Mainwaring! We're well set for the next two decades under Delia. Long may she reign.

Is it down to the lake, I fear.

No, I don't think using a disability-related term as a negative connotation towards a group of people is acceptable. Clearly you do.

Pure luck? Wow,that's an amazing feat over a 46-game season,isn't it?

Not very often a team is top of the league after 46 games thanks to uh...well...pure luck. Kind of makes debating completely pointless with you when you refuse to give credit where it's due and criticise at every other opportunity.

I think that's Bill

I clicked to see what diatribe you'd posted, only to find that more than 6 months after I blocked you, you're still aiming posts at me. It's cute, but more than a little desperate. As for your bizarre attention seeking post, I'll do no more than correct your ridiculous assertions. Full time, permanent contract - School has been Outstanding on last two Ofsted visits (including one in the last few years, where 80% of previously outstanding schools were downgraded - mine wasn't). Comprehensive school, not even near a city, let alone one big enough to have an inner city..... Fully mixed catchment in socio-economic terms. Significantly above national average on all measures for progress and attainment, and my subject outperformed national average by 20%. Oh and we have a positive progress score for students who receive the Pupil Premium funding (ie the most deprived) who buck national trends by performing on par with non PP kids. Good try though. I won't bother clicking your posts again so don't bother replying.