Newcastle United's majority owners the Saudi Arabian PIF have made another acquisition just as the doors have potentially been opened for sponsorships following Manchester City's Associated Party Transaction arbitration victory.
The PIF have their fingers in a lot of pies with large stakes in companies like Disney, Saudi Airlines, Shell, BP and so on. It was because of their mass wealth and connections to such giant companies that the APT rules were put in place so quickly after the takeover went through with clubs terrified that the PIF would get the likes of Disney to sponsor St James' Park for £500 million-a-season or something outrageous like that.
Now that it looks as though the APT rules are set to be scrapped, or at least massively changed, that fear is rising again.
And former Man City finance officer, Stefan Borson has joked about the PIF's latest acquisition informing the design of a future third kit.
The PIF have just bought a 40% stake in huge retailer Selfridges with Borson joking "Yellow Newcastle third kid incoming" alluding to the Selfridges yellow branding.
In fairness, while he was probably joking, it obviously wouldn't be the first time that Newcastle have donned yellow as an alternative kit colour - remember the Adidas bananas and cream kit? We've also often used green and yellow together.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility, and the big advantage of having a yellow kit would be that the big square Noon sleeve sponsor would finally not look out of place.
It's very likely that next season's kit designs have already been chosen so we doubt we'll be seeing a yellow kit next season, but if the PIF wanted to use Newcastle United to promote Selfridges it's not beyond them to do so.
At the end of the day, whether we like to admit it or not, our green and white alternative kits of the past few years are definitely an allusion to our Saudi ownership, it's just fortunate that we have history of green and white kits so we have plausible deniability.
The yellow Adidas kit is often named as one of the worst Newcastle kits so let's hope that Borson's joke doesn't come to pass. We can maybe handle a green and yellow kit to hark back to the 80s but all yellow? Best to avoid.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
13 | 18 | 34 |
2 |
Arsenal
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
4 |
Brighton
|
13 | 5 | 23 |
5 |
Manchester City
|
13 | 3 | 23 |
6 |
Nottingham Forest
|
13 | 3 | 22 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
13 | 14 | 20 |
8 |
Brentford
|
13 | 3 | 20 |
9 |
Manchester United
|
13 | 4 | 19 |
10 |
Fulham
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
11 |
Newcastle United
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
12 |
Aston Villa
|
13 | -3 | 19 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
13 | 1 | 18 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
13 | -7 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
13 | -11 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
13 | -11 | 10 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
13 | -7 | 9 |
18 |
Wolves
|
13 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Ipswich
|
13 | -11 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
13 | -15 | 5 |