A quick scan of the Financial pages will see them filled with scathing criticism of Mike Ashley's cronyism, poor governance and lack of transparency. There are increasing calls for intervention by the London Stock Exchange into the way he is running Sports Direct
There is no doubt that Ashley is a clever wheeler dealer and is successful at making money. He recently made £30 million in a matter of weeks by quickly buying then selling a 3% stake in Adidas.
However the criticisms being levelled at him at present are rather worrying to a Geordie nation fresh from celebrating the dethroning of one controversial, controlling, bungling chairman only to read that the nation's financial press want our new owner thrown out the door of Sports Direct.
It seems in summary that the Board of Sports Direct is largely made up of Mike Ashley cronies who have presided over the share price dropping from 300p at launch in February 2007 to it's current standing of 147p wiping more than £1 billion from the value of the company. The Company Chairman has recently resigned, Sports Direct has lost it's public relations firm and spent crucial periods without a City advisor.
The Finance Director Bob Mellors is an old associate of Mike Ashley's and has been accused of not producing Financial Data of the quality expected of a Public Company.
While this has been going on Mike Ashley himself has injected a 29% stake of Black's Leisure into Sports Direct and is currently trying to sack the Black's Leisure Board. He has bought a 90% stake in Newcastle United and is now de-listing them from the stock market. He has bought and sold 3% of Adidas, bid £90 million for US Boxing brand Everlast and bought 60% of outdoor retailer Field & Trek. Also he is currently selling 35 properties including their company headquarters back to Sports Direct for £105 million.
Meanwhile at Newcastle he has appointed another of his cronies Chris Mort as club Chairman who has been quick to stress he needs to get the behind the scenes affairs right and get the current players performing to their best. But crucially no money has so far been invested in club or players.
In the transfer market so far we have sold Scott Parker for £7m and used this to buy a player thrown out of his previous club for attacking a team mate and a previously unknown Czech centre half. Also we've taking in an old, overweight albeit free scoring Aussie centre forward and a Chelsea squad player both on free transfers.
Whilst Chris Mort and Sam Allardyce are both talking a sensible game plan the current transfer action is hardly a statement of intent by the new owners.
The one piece of hope for us all to cling on to in all this is that for Mike Ashley to make large amounts of money out of the Newcastle United brand he has to invest in the side to make it successful.
Or could it be that like all other previous owners of Newcastle United in my lifetime he knows the loyal Geordie faithful will spend money on their team regardless of whether we win or lose. His only investment then needs to be promises and they really do come cheap as we already know from previous regimes.
So over to you Mike Ashley, it will take some serious investment in the club and in new players to convince us you intend to make Newcastle United the trophy winning team we loyal Geordie's deserve.
