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Geoffrey Boycott has warned \u201cthere will be trouble\u201d if Yorkshire sell their Headingley home to Mike Ashley, and added: \u201cEverybody in Newcastle hates him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashley owned Newcastle United Football Club until October 2021, when the Magpies were bought by a Saudi-led consortium.<\/p>\n
The PA news agency understands the Frasers Group, where Ashley is chief executive, is one of the parties interested in purchasing Headingley and securing naming and sponsorship rights, with Yorkshire working to refinance their debts and obtain sufficient working capital to thrive rather than merely survive.<\/p>\n
Former Yorkshire and England batter Boycott, 82, voiced his view on the club\u2019s future direction at a heated extraordinary general meeting at the ground on Thursday morning and urged the club\u2019s board to be transparent with members.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery week I pick up a paper and I hear you telling us \u2018we\u2019re near a deal\u2019. That\u2019s been going on for months and months,\u201d he said to the club\u2019s chief executive Stephen Vaughan.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe know nothing more except (what\u2019s in) the newspapers about that guy at Newcastle wanting to buy it, and the club near to selling to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody in Newcastle hates him. I don\u2019t know him, but that doesn\u2019t sound good for Yorkshire cricket if you\u2019re going to sell to him and lease back. I don\u2019t want to be leasing back Headingley, why the hell do I?<\/p>\n
\u201cSo tell us something, for God\u2019s sake! If you do try to sell and lease back, I\u2019m telling you there will be trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaughan responded: \u201cThere are various offers with different connotations, but what I will say, if people genuinely think people have come forward with some sort of unicorn bid to buy the stadium, to keep it as a members\u2019 club, all these things, then they\u2019re kidding themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have taken something like that in a heartbeat. If anybody thinks there was some sort of miracle answer out there, they\u2019re kidding themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anybody thinks we aren\u2019t taking certain offers seriously, personalities don\u2019t come into it. The very best thing for our creditors, our members and other stakeholders will be accepted by the board, it\u2019s as simple as that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club have done a deal to defer any repayments of the \u00a314.9million owed to their major creditor, the Graves Trust, until 2025 which they hope will afford them the breathing space to secure the right refinancing deal and then pay that debt off.<\/p>\n
The club are also trying to get back on an even keel following the financial and reputational costs of the racism scandal which engulfed them over the last three years.<\/p>\n
Vaughan and chair-elect Harry Chathli both gave guarantees that whichever refinancing deal was ultimately accepted, Yorkshire remaining at Headingley in perpetuity would be a \u201cred line\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked in a separate interview with PA after the meeting whether Yorkshire remaining as a member\u2019s club was also a red line, Vaughan said: \u201cWe\u2019ve made it extremely clear to everybody that we\u2019ve spoken to that we have no intention of Yorkshire becoming a non member\u2019s club.<\/p>\n
Everybody in Newcastle hates him. I don\u2019t know him, but that doesn\u2019t sound good for Yorkshire cricket if you\u2019re going to sell to him and lease back. I don’t want to be leasing back Headingley, why the hell do I?<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed, with anybody that\u2019s approached us saying that they would like to explore that opportunity, we have gone one step further and said it\u2019s not within our gift.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have to get 50 per cent quorum to vote \u2013 which would be going some versus the numbers we\u2019re getting at the moment \u2013 and then 75 per cent to vote in favour of Yorkshire becoming a non-member\u2019s club. Other than the fact that would be challenging in the extreme, we have no say on that as a board.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chathli is set to become Yorkshire\u2019s new permanent chair in succession to Lord Kamlesh Patel in the coming weeks, with special resolutions passed on Thursday which would allow his appointment outside of an annual general meeting.<\/p>\n
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Members voted in favour of Chathli\u2019s appointment to the board as an independent non-executive director, and he will officially become chair once Financial Conduct Authority ratification of the appointment is received. That is expected by mid-October.<\/p>\n
However, his election to the board was far from unanimous, with 108 of the 389 members who voted by proxy going against the motion to appoint him. A further eight of those 389 abstained.<\/p>\n