page_title: Newcastle United F.C.
section_title: Ownership
hierarchical_section_title: Newcastle United F.C. / Ownership
caption_attribution_description: English: Newcastle fans show "Mike Ashley Out" cards away to QPR May 2015
context_page_description: Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, that plays in the Premier League, the top flight of English football.
  Founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End. The team plays its home matches at St. James' Park. Per the Taylor Report's requirement that all Premier League clubs have an all-seater stadium, the ground was adjusted in the mid-1990s and now has a capacity of 52,305.
  The club has been a member of the Premier League for all but three years of the competition's history, spending 88 seasons in the top flight as of July 2020, and have never dropped below English football's second tier since joining the Football League in 1893. Newcastle have won 4 League titles, 6 FA Cups and a Charity Shield, as well as the 1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the 2006 UEFA Intertoto Cup, the ninth highest total of trophies won by an English club. The club's most successful period was between 1904 and 1910, when they won an FA Cup and three of their League titles. Newcastle were relegated in 2009, and again in 2016.
context_section_description: Newcastle United was set up as a private company limited by shares on 6 September 1895.  The club traded in this way for much of the 20th century, dominated by McKeag, Westwood and Seymour family ownership, until April 1997, when John Hall, who bought 72.9% of the club for £3 million in 1991, floated the club on the stock exchange as a public limited company, with less than half the shares sold to the Hall family and the majority holding going to his business partner Freddy Shepherd. Later that year, Hall stepped down as chairman and was replaced by Shepherd, with the Hall family represented on the board by John's son Douglas. In December 1998, after buying a 6.3% stake in the club for £10 million, the media group NTL had considered a full takeover of the club. This was later dropped after the Competition Commission, established in April 1999, expressed concerns about football clubs being owned by media companies.
  In 2007, businessman Mike Ashley purchased the combined stakes of both Douglas and John Hall, 41% share in the club, through a holding company St James Holdings, with a view to buy the rest. Upon purchasing this share, he appointed Chris Mort as chairman, while gaining more shares, owning 93.19% of the club by 29 June 2007. This figure reached 95% on 11 July 2007, forcing the remaining shareholders to sell their shares.
  Since completing the purchase of the club, Ashley has announced that he planned to sell the club on three occasions. The first occurred after fan protests over the resignation of Kevin Keegan on 14 September 2008, when Ashley stated, "I have listened to you. You want me out. That is what I am now trying to do." However, he took it off the market on 28 December 2008 after being unable to find a buyer. On 31 May 2009, it was reported that Ashley was attempting to sell the club again. On 8 June 2009, Ashley confirmed that the club was up for sale at an asking price of £100 million. By the end of August 2009, the club was back off the market. On 16 October 2017, Newcastle United announced that Ashley had once again put the club up for sale, reporting that he hoped that a deal could be concluded by Christmas 2017.
  In April 2020, it was reported that a group led by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia was finalizing an offer to acquire Newcastle United. The sale has prompted concerns and criticism, such as arguments considering it sportwashing of the country's human rights record, as well as ongoing large-scale piracy of sports broadcasts in the region.
  In May 2020, two Conservative MPs called upon the government to scrutinize aspects of the deal, with Karl McCartney calling for the sale to be blocked, and Giles Watling calling upon the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to hold an oral evidence session regarding sports piracy in Saudi Arabia. In May 2020, The Guardian reported that the Premier League had obtained a report from the World Trade Organization (published publicly the following month), which contained evidence that Saudi nationals had backed beoutQ — a pirate broadcaster carrying the beIN Sports networks in the region since the Qatar diplomatic crisis. In June 2020, The Guardian reported that Richard Masters, who appeared in front of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, had hinted possible takeover of Newcastle United. However, the MPs warned it would be “humiliating” to allow a Saudi Arabian consortium to take charge given the country’s record on piracy and human rights. In July 2020, The Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia’s decision to ban beIN Sports broadcast from operating in the nation, has further complicated the takeover of Newcastle United. On July 30, 2020, Saudi Arabia announced its withdrawal from the Newcastle deal, after multiple media reports highlighted realm as the staunch violator of human rights. And the WTO ruled that it was behind the piracy campaign using pirate-pay-service beoutQ. "With a deep appreciation for the Newcastle community and the significance of its football club, we have come to the decision to withdraw our interest 
caption: Newcastle fans show "Mike Ashley Out" cards away to QPR, May 2015
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