Report: Mike Ashley refuses to give up on crusade against Newcastle United and Adidas

If Mike Ashley was as cavalier with his money when he was Newcastle United owner as he is now we'd maybe not despise him as much as a fanbase.

The Sports Direct boss is pretty much universally loathed round these parts for the 14 years of torment he put us through when in charge of our beloved club.

One of the big gripes we had as a fanbase was Ashley's reluctance to spend money on the club with him often coming out and saying how he's not rich enough to allow the club to compete. However, it seems he feels he is rich enough to waste money on lawyers to file frivolous, doomed-to-fail attacks on Newcastle United.

After taking a battering in court just a couple of weeks ago when he was pretty much told he didn't have a case, The Chronicle has now said that Mike Ashley is now taking his suit to the court of appeals after Newcastle United and Adidas agreed an exclusivity deal with JD Sports to sell the upcoming kits, thereby cutting Sports Direct out of the supply chain.

Mike Ashley's appeal will be heard on Thursday

Exclusivity agreements like the one the club have entered into with JD Sports are nothing new so the club have done nothing wrong.

However, Mike Ashley's ego just can't accept this fact and he's now trying again with his appeal to be looked at this Thursday.

We expect that this appeal process will take just as long as his original tribunal case to be thrown out, but if Ashley wants to keep wasting money, we'll keep laughing.

Newcastle have really got under his skin - it's magnificent

The thing is, Ashley is so widely despised by our fanbase that even if he did win the right to stock our upcoming kits, so few fans would actually buy them from his stores anyway that he's not really missing out.

We absolutely love this move by the club and Adidas, it's just the ultimate middle finger to our former owner. We know that Amanda Staveley repeatedly thanked Mike Ashley for his support during the takeover process, but there's no way that behind the scenes it wasn't acrimonious, at least at points. Ashley comes across as such an awful person, and a nightmare to do business with that there's no way things ran smoothly. Pure speculation on our part, but it does make sense.

The fact that the club have made this move tells all, really. And we absolutely love it.