Newcastle United FC

• Nickname:
• Founded:1892
• Manager:Alan Pardew

• Ground:
• Capacity:NaN

Magpies sale hopes rise

07 Jun 2009 - 11:59:22

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There are renewed hopes that a deal to sell Newcastle United will be completed by the end of the month.

The man responsible for brokering the arrangement, Keith Harris, chairman of investment bank Seymour Pierce, has revealed that there are two or three parties keen to buy the club.

"I'm confident there will be offers to consider in quite short order," Harris told the BBC. "It's a decent guess that there are two or three interested parties.

"There is real and decent interest, and this isn't necessarily from far-flung parts of the globe. Newcastle had an awful season and got relegated so that has an implication for the value of an asset of a decrease to make it more attractive.

"Alan Shearer is obviously a very charismatic figure in the area and Newcastle need some local interest. He is a good commercial addition, certainly in terms of generating interest among the fans.

"Whether he's the right man to lead the club back into the Premier League is something other people will express a view on, especially if there's going to be a change of ownership.

"It's a huge club. In attendance terms last year it exceeded Liverpool with an average attendance over 48,000.

"If you walk around the infrastructure of the ground, the training ground, the academy, what you realise is for somebody willing to take a view over two or three years this is a club that belongs in the top seven of the Premier League. It's very attractive."