Premier League side
Newcastle United Owner Mike Ashley
dropped the asking price for the club to £380M ($513.2M) "in an attempt to complete a sale." Newcastle has "effectively been on the market for several years" without finding a buyer, but there were "fresh negotiations with Chinese investors last summer" and Ashley said that he valued the club at £400M ($540.2M) (
LONDON TIMES, 9/23).
Sold-out rugby and football int'ls "helped the Aviva Stadium score an operating profit" of €3.1M for '16. Accounts filed for New Stadium, the company co-owned by the FA of Ireland and the Irish Rugby Football Union, show that operating profits fell by €500,000 "despite an additional 150,000 customers attending events at the south Dublin venue." In the seventh year of operations following the reopening of the old Lansdowne Road facility, the stadium held 21 events, up from 16, "and attracted almost 750,000 people" (SUNDAY TIMES, 9/24).
The Irish Racehorse Trainers' Association estimates that up to €4M ($4.78M) is "ready and waiting to be put into Irish racing's new stable staff pension scheme." The scheme set up to replace an old pension fund wound up in '10 will be financed by a "proportion of prize money deducted from trainers." IRTA CEO Michael Grassick said on Friday that "such deductions have continued in the years since the old scheme finished" (IRISH TIMES, 9/23).