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Newcastle owner puts club up for sale
Newcastle United Football Club has been put up for sale by its owner Mike Ashley following a number of supporters' protests.
Ashley, who spent nearly £250m to acquire the club in May 2007, has been targeted by fans who blame him for the resignation of former manager, Kevin Keegan, earlier this month. In a lengthy statement on the club's official website, Ashley said that fears for his family's safety at games had prompted the decision to sell: "I am now a dad who can't take his kids to a football game on a Saturday because I am advised that we would be assaulted," he said. "Therefore, I am no longer prepared to subsidise Newcastle United.
"I am putting the club up for sale. I hope that the fans get what they want and that the next owner is someone who can lavish the amount of money on the club that the fans want." Ashley also revealed that the club still owes millions of pounds in transfer fees, and its very existence was threatened without his investment.
"The club still owes millions of pounds in transfer fees," said Ashley. "I shall be paying out many more millions over the coming year to pay for players bought by the club before I arrived. But there was a double whammy. Commercial deals such as sponsorships and advertising had been front loaded. The money had been paid upfront and spent. I was left with a club that owed millions and part of whose future had been mortgaged. "Unless I had come into the club then it might not have survived. It could have shared the fate of other clubs who have borrowed too heavily against their future. Before I had spent a penny on wages or buying players Newcastle United had cost me more than a quarter of a billion pounds."