If the Saudi takeover goes through they’d be by some distance the richest owners in football.

If Newcastle new owners go on a silly spending spree then there is potential for clubs to take advantage of them early on. They won’t be able to get the absolute superstar players straight away, they’ll overpay for players - potentially rejects from bigger clubs and the players will move as they’ll get huge wages and playing time with the excitement and potential of more to come.

Wonder if they want Elneny for £30m

They will likely want Saka, SR and Ramsdale and offer silly wages.

American sports have been a billionaires club for some time. What checks that kind of economic excess is we have a salary cap and other inhibitors in place for equity. America likes to market itself as the home of capitalism but our professional sports leagues are actually an exercise in socialism.

Anyway, football doesn't have the same restrictions. The FFP or whatever the intials are, offer very little defense against a complete free for all, Darwinian version of sports. It's becoming apparant clubs will need a mulit-billionaire, willing to infuse them enough money to buy the best players in order to compete.

Although Leicester is owned by a multi billion pound company they have not financially bullied the league as City and Chelsea have. Despite our spending, we haven't either if you look at who we have bought.

Apparently Bissouma was arrested by police yesterday morning on suspicion of sexual assault

Hi Rich,

If they are as rich as people say, their ambition is vast and they can circumvent the last dregs of the FFP rules then they could probably win the league within 5 years, if not sooner.

It will be yet another financially doped club standing between us and top four.

We may have to get used to finishing outside the top 6 most years.

Without prejudging the allegations, bullet dodged for us. Even if innocent his mind will hardly be on the game and resale value will plummet until sorted one way or the other.

Over the last 12 months we spent over 130 mil and paid a number of players a lot of money not to play or to walk away from the club, at the same time making a big loss. Not sure we are in the moral high ground on these issues.

Assuming Bissouma has genuinely committed the offence and it isn’t a false charge that won’t stand up in court, I always find it strange when celebrities do this type of thing.

Bissouma is a well known Premier League footballer who will therefore be stinking rich by any normal standards. He’ll presumably live in a house so big that a mansion is probably a more appropriate term, and probably drive a massively expensive car in the Ferrari or Bentley sort of class.

There will be countless highly attractive females of any age, ethnicity or appearance who are only too willing to have a sexual relationship with him. I’m definitely not talking about prostitutes who do it for money, at whatever level of client base they’re in. I’m speaking of those who have never accepted a single penny to have sex with someone.

Stuff like being taken to a lavishly expensive restaurant or club, being driven to Bissouma’s impressive dwelling in the Leicestershire countryside (or wherever he lives) and in a Lamborghini (or whatever he drives) will be enough to make many women not only willing but eager to have sex with him. Not all by any means. But a lot, and easily enough to make it easy for Bissouma to find a sexual partner for the evening or night without having to look very hard.

I would say the same of any high profile sportsman, actor, musician and all the other public types of work a small number of people do. If Bissouma has done what he’s been arrested for, he’s an idiot. A complete moron.

If he has committed the offences then he has serious issues and a borderline sociopath because many women throw themselves at guys like that who have money. It’s not trendy to say that but it’s the truth. The amount of times in business I've come across wealthy fat ugly and obnoxious businessmen who have wives girlfriends 10 to 15 years plus younger and who are knockouts that make a totally odd couple. Literally the “what do you see in multi millionaire Person x” Joke. Hey maybe I’m a cynic and it was love at first sight..,

This is explained perfectly in the crazy hot matrix presentation in the cute hot explanation at the end.

https://youtu.be/Gd4u4B-hrlE

You’re right Top Gun. I could easily have included successful businessmen alongside the categories I did name like sportsmen, actors and musicians. They’re firmly included in the other forms of work qualification I mentioned.

It appears Bielik is still our player, of sorts;

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... e-25148729

I would guess it stems from a grossly misplaced concept of power. Rich man is used to getting exactly what he wants, when he wants, from whoever he wants and so when he doesn't get it he tries to forcibly get it to exert his power or to save face/pride.

Moving away from sexual assault I reckon there are huge numbers of male v male crimes (fights, stabbings etc) committed for the sole reason of 'saving face'. The male ego is a dangerous thing.

I wonder if there is a fire sale of players whether there is an option that Arsenal take Bielik back for free (to wipe off the £8m debt) and then we sell him on?
I suppose it depends if Derby could attract an offer for him from another team for more than £8m, then they'd have to pay us the £8m and keep the profit they make. Having said that, if Derby are unable to find a suitor willing to pay more than £8m for Bielik, why would we take him back, we'd rather have the £8m than have the problem of selling him for £8m when Derby have already tried that and found no one willing to buy.

Yes, in the end I found the constant female attention the most tiresome aspect of being a local government officer. It really did become too much. I had to take early retirement.

in the end it got too much to cope with.

It’s also dangerous to associate characteristics like ego with males only. Plenty of men don’t have a significant ego while lots of women do. From my interest in female crime exactly the same point can be made of traits like psychopathy, sadism, and so on. Individually Ian Brady hadn’t harmed a fly (although he’d fantasised about it) until he met Myra Hindley, and nor had she before meeting Brady. They were both psychopaths before meeting each other, but their psychopathy fed off each other.

A similar point can be made of Fred and Rose West. They were both sexual sadists before meeting each other. Indeed Fred committed his first sadistic murder before meeting Rose. But it should be remembered that Rose committed her first murder while Fred was in prison for a lesser crime (from memory I think he was inside for stealing). When Fred got out, Rose told him what she’d done to his stepdaughter (which Rose’s first victim was) and he helped hide her crime up. They then went on the commit plenty of other gross acts, including murder, together.

Both couples show the danger when psychopathic sadists get together as a couple because they need to inflict their cruelty on others. It is generally less harmful when sexual sadists and masochists get together because things can be kept ‘in house’, as it were. In its mildest form this may be satisfied by one partner smacking the other’s bottom. Reportedly this is so common it happens in a significant proportion of marriages and relationships, both heterosexual and homosexual.

What has to be accepted is that there are a lot more male psychopaths than female ones. But psychopathy is not gender specific. For evidence you need look no further in recent times at the cases of Joanne Dennehy (who is basically kept in solitary confinement because it’s recognised she’d want to murder other inmates if she was allowed contact with them). There’s also the nurse Beverley Allitt. Certainly a psychopath but less obviously a sadist. However, research has shown she used to enjoy beating her boyfriends up both during sex and at other times.

There’s also another nurse, Lucy Letby, who has been nicked for murdering eight babies in her care. She’s currently remanded in custody until her trial next year so there’s little publicly known evidence about her motivations. But my money will be on subsequent research showing she’s also a psychopath.

A nice pie chart showing premier league owners wealth

Perhaps his fame and fortune did get him his consenting sexual partner, who has now turned around to make a case of it. Anything is a possibility.

If that’s the case I would hope it will be proven easily in court. They met in a nightclub on Brighton seafront on Wednesday, so yesterday. Hence I’m sure others will have seen them together. I doubt the police will have taken the decision to arrest him on the strength of some p*ssed up girl making blatantly false allegations.

Cliff Richard might argue with that premise? Having said that the UK's low conviction rates on rape and other sexual assaults is a disgrace to the criminal justice system.

It presumably implies a case has to be strong to bring a conviction.

Not seen it too widely reported but Arsenal played a behind closed doors friendly vs QPR. A mix of first teamers not on international duty and youth team players. Arsenal won 3-2.

Read that the goal-scorers were Martinelli(2) and Lacazette but I wouldn't be confident in that being true.

I didn’t think Cliff Richard was either arrested or charged though.

Eng U21's currently playing a front 3 of Smith Rowe, Balogun and John-Jules. 3 Arsenal academy players

Maybe not, but it was quite clear that the police and BBC were in cahoots in pursuing him in what turned out to be a baseless allegation. So baseless he ended up being compensated financially, though too little too late to ever repair the damage to his reputation.

You clearly know more about the case than me but as far as my limited understanding of it goes, someone made a false allegation about Cliff Richard. The police understandably investigated the matter and found there was no case to answer. Am I right in thinking the guy who made the false allegations was subsequently arrested for making them?

What did the police do that was so wrong? They received an allegation against a celebrity. I would hope you wouldn’t expect them to refuse to investigate an allegation against a celebrity? They looked into it, found there was nothing in the allegation and arrested the bloke who falsely made it for attempted bribery. It wasn’t the police who had to pay Cliff Richard compensation, as far as I recall. I thought it was the media for the way they reported it.

Rape and sexual assault are crimes of violence and power. Sexual gratification is not the motivating factor. It is often the refusal to believe that someone can refuse them. I believe your prosecution service have a 2 tier test for proceeding with a prosecution. In Australia there must be a prima Facie case and reasonable prospects of a conviction. I am unsure if this has merely been an arrest and charge but I assume the prosecution may have been consulted. Not sure how it works over there.

I have no knowledge of Australian law, but you make a good point about the psychology of sex attacks. Moreover, it arguably makes Bissouma’s actions, if they are proven, no better or tolerable. I think you said we dodged a bullet by not signing him. If the allegations are proven, I’m struggling to think of a reason to disagree with you.

Charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. The furore was because someone at the police as good as invited the press, was it the BBC?, to film the police forcibly entering Cliff's home and arresting him. Completely unnecessary and very embarrassing to anyone, let alone to Cliff Richard.
,

The problem the police have in taking cases are that the defence are allowed to use Facebook postings by the accused showing them to possibly be sexually active and promiscuous to the extent that the jury are overly influenced and find defendants not guilty.

The whole thing's a mess.

What a startling graphic. And what an absolute mess football ownership/governance has become in the premier league.
It seems like Arsenal's only realistic option to 'compete' in the future is going to be developing our own players...before we sell them on.

I am quite pleased for Newcastle fans but lets be honest it's a disaster for us.

It's also another nail in the coffin for the english game.

Discussing the football aspects of the Newcastle takeover seems such a ridiculous side thought right now.

Imagine if Kroenke was tracking down and murdering journalists. That’s what your dealing with here with this takeover.

There’s questionable business practices for people like Abramovich and usmanov and then there’s beheading human rights activists.

The sport is becoming more and more absurd and a risk of becoming so grotesque you will question your own morality for just watching it

Morning socrates. Newcastle presumably might have the spending power to blow Manchester City’s away, let alone the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham. It’s not just us it’s a disaster for if Newcastle’s owners use their wealth to totally dominate English football.

You say it’s another nail in the coffin for the English game. If its appeal has anything to do with competitiveness, then it could become its burial in the deepest grave of any cemetery. Or even its cremation.

EDIT: And nor am I pleased for Newcastle fans. Stuff them.

Wonder where Willock will feature in the expected new Newcastle line-up next year? Perhaps happy to be a squad player and win trophies while warming the bench.

TG, may I suggest watching a re-run of "Little House on the Prairie" or "Lassie"? Those were morally right shows.

??!

Just kidding with you, regards your morality question. Only a joke, no stress.

The 2 different headlines on the bbc football website totally sum up the absurdity of the sport now ...

Alan Shearer says the Saudi Arabian-backed £305m takeover of Newcastle is a "special day" for the club's long-suffering supporters.


Newcastle United: Saudi-backed takeover is 'heartbreaking,' says fiancee of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi