Irish pair seek investors to buy Newcastle

Former Sunderland shareholder and Dublin publican Charlie Chawke has revealed he is putting together a consortium to bid for Newcastle United, who were relegated from the Premier League last season.

Chawke, part of the Drumaville consortium which bought Sunderland in 2006 before selling its stake earlier this year, said talks on purchasing the Championship club are at an early stage.

Newcastle owner Mike Ashley officially put the club up for sale for €116million last month and British media have reported that one consortium from Malaysia and another from the US are in pole position to take over.

"We are in talks with Newcastle at the moment. Our legal and financial people are speaking to the legal and financial people over there," Chawke told RTE.

"Negotiations are not too advanced. It's at an initial stage but we have got a fairly good response. There's great interest, it's just a matter of putting the money together."

Chawke said he hoped to assemble a group of investors of similar size to the eight that bought Sunderland and that fellow former shareholder and publican Louis Fitzgerald was part of the new consortium.

He said both did not wish to leave Sunderland but were outvoted when American businessman Ellis Short bought the group's stake in May.

"We had three great years there (Sunderland) but unfortunately we're gone now and we're looking for options. We have to look at options other than Sunderland and Newcastle would fit very nicely into our portfolio."

"Newcastle is a very viable option at the moment.”

He added: "It's a great club, it houses 52,000 people. It's a great city, Newcastle.

"It's a bit like Dublin - vibrant, full of fun...all the best things in life are there. It makes perfect sense if I could just swing it."

The Singapore-based The Profitable Group, for whom former Liverpool midfielder Steve McMahon is commercial director, has already bid for the club.

McMahon is believed to have broken a 'non-disclosure' agreement by revealing the bid to The Straits Times.

"We’ve had a bid, it’s under serious consideration," he said.

Austrian online gaming firm Bwin has also reportedly made enquiries about a takeover.