Is Staveley plotting a takeover at Toon?
LEADING financier Amanda Staveley was a conspicuous presence at St James’ Park on Sunday — and it’s unlikely she was in Newcastle just to cheer on her beloved Liverpool.
Staveley, whose PCP Capital Partners fund has £28billion under management, is looking to take over a Premier League club.
The 44-year-old came close to buying one earlier this season before the deal unravelled. And she is a rarity as a genuine buyer in a hurry to spend money in football.
A clear sign of her intent is that colleagues say Staveley is spending as much time on football business as she is on her £1.2bn lawsuit against Barclays Bank, whom it is claimed owe her massive fees for raising £7bn from Qatar and Abu Dhabi during the 2008 financial crisis.
Her preference is to buy a major club in the Premier League, or one such as Newcastle who have the strong potential to become one.
Newcastle are for sale for the right price, although no official talks with Staveley have taken place. However, she did spend time with Toon manager Rafa Benitez in his office post-match.
Staveley, a former girlfriend of Prince Andrew, orchestrated the sale of Manchester City to Sheik Mansour in 2008. And last season she made a failed bid for Liverpool in partnership with Chinese backers.
To add to the football connection, Staveley has just engaged FIFA’s super expensive American lawyers Quinn Emanuel to fight her case against Barclays.
MARINA GRANOVSKAIA (right), who holds the transfer purse strings at Chelsea, is arguably the most powerful woman in British sport, so it is strange she keeps such a low profile. Female achievers in sport were being feted at Chelsea director Granovskaia’s home ground Stamford Bridge last night, but she was nowhere to be seen.
ONLY the FA could keep on about their new transparency and then be barmy enough to close St George’s Park’s Hilton Hotel to paying guests when England are based there in international weeks. This makes no financial sense — especially as SGP is deep in the Staffordshire countryside and needs all the non-football business it can muster. A large notice at the entrance reads: ‘No access to members of the general public.’
BEN STOKES has gone to ground since his brawl in Bristol and there are traffic cones stopping anyone parking outside the gates of his County Durham mansion. But locals say the cones have been there since the house’s former owner, ex-Sunderland footballer Adam Johnson, was jailed for sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl.
Sparks flying at 5 Live
VICKI SPARKS is still best known for being the BBC reporter told last season by Sunderland boss David Moyes that she ‘might get a slap’. But that won’t be the case for much longer after Sparks, 29, made an admirable debut, without any fanfare, as the first woman to do a 90-minute Premier League match commentary on Radio 5 Live. Sparks’s calling of Burnley’s 1-0 win at Everton was first-rate and she deserves to become a regular on the station.
DAN ASHWORTH, the FA technical director who remains at the centre of the Mark Sampson storm, was very evident around England training in his St George’s Park domain yesterday. He seemed to be sending out the message that the FA have nothing to hide over the sacking of England women’s coach Sampson, nor his appointment and later contract extension.
WITH the FA still in crisis mode over Sampson’s sacking and Crystal Palace yet to score a Premier League goal or win a point this season, it’s unlikely FA chief executive Martin Glenn and Palace manager Roy Hodgson have much time for golf. But when they do, both have become members of Richmond Golf Club.