Newcastle facing £140m match against Aston Villa

As if Newcastle's players needed telling, the stakes they are playing for this weekend when they line up against Aston Villa at Villa Park for the final Premier League fixture of the season are immense.

For in addition to the money which is concomitant with them staying in the top flight, widely reckoned to be between £45-50m in media income from the Sky TV deal, club owner Mike Ashley could lose out on a £140m takeover should they be relegated to the Championship.

Ashley, who bought the club for £134m and has spent a further £100m on it, is widely reviled by Newcastle fans, who viewed his management team (including the now departed Dennis Wise as transfers supremo and erstwhile manager Joe Kinnear) as the 'Cockney Mafia' of people who knew nothing of Newcastle's heritage.

A sale of the club is thus in everyone's interests, with Ashley wanting rid of a club that hates him and has lost him a substantial amount of money in the mid of corporate troubles in his sportswear empire. An uneasy truce has reigned between owner and fans since the appointment of Alan Shearer as interim manager.

Although a St James's Park legend on the pitch, under Shearer Newcastle has only won once and is in the third relegation slot, knowing that a win for Hull against Manchester United would doom Newcastle whatever result they can pick up at Villa.

Interest in buying Newcastle has come from Nigeria and South Africa, as well as a new consortium of buyers made up of American and Middle Eastern multi-millionaires, but a broken club playing second-tier football with few starts will not attract much attention.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYINGDaniel Taylor, the Guardian: "The men behind the takeover, including two NBA owners, have been putting together a potential deal for the last few months and are led to believe that Ashley is willing to sell even though he took the club off the market at the end of December. The prospective buyers are waiting to see whether Newcastle can climb out of the relegation zone at Aston Villa on Sunday before deciding their best strategy. Newcastle's valuation would plummet if they were to fall into the Championship but the businessmen involved in the proposed deal see little mileage in taking on a club that is not involved in the Premier League." ·