Sources: Amanda Staveley and Mike Ashley on brink of £10m Newcastle United settlement
Representatives of Amanda Staveley are confident of reaching a settlement in a lawsuit over a £10million loan from former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, sources have told Football Insider.
Ashley lent financier Staveley the cash as part of last October’s Saudi-backed £305million takeover of the Magpies, the terms of which gave Staveley’s company PCP Capital Partners a 10 per cent stake in the club.
The agreement between the two parties was made under the proviso that the new regime would not disparage Ashley’s running of the club.
The 58-year-old, a deeply unpopular figure on Tyneside in stark contrast to the new owners, argues that Staveley broke this term when she claimed she could not wait to remove Sports Direct signage at St James’ Park.
Ashley therefore wants the loan to be repaid in full in advance of its original October 2023 deadline and has taken the case to London’s High Court.
The Court heard at the first hearing in October that Staveley had painted a false picture of Newcastle’s finances with her rhetoric after the controversial buyout.
But a legal source with knowledge of the case has told Football Insider that tensions have since cooled and that there is now confidence that a settlement can be reached before the case goes to trial in the new year.
That is despite Judge Simon Bryan having previously set a deadline to inform him in the event of a settlement by an unconfirmed date in December.
It is believed, but not verified, that the date passed without a settlement, meaning Staveley and Ashley are, for the time being at least, headed towards a trial.
But it is understood that both parties now consider this eventually extremely unlikely.
In other news, Newcastle United two-man January shopping list revealed.