The Telegraph is facing a ban from attending home matches at Newcastle United Football Club after it refused to take down an article exposing “tension” within the club.
North East football reporter Luke Edwards reported on Monday that a group of players were “undermining” manager Alan Pardew, putting the club in danger of a “damaging split”.
The Telegraph said the story was “written on the basis of verbal and written accounts of the split provided by several sources” within the club.
Newcastle United has told the newspaper all Telegraph staff will be "banned" from the club, and from interviewing players, unless the article is removed and the paper issues a full apology.
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The Telegraph has declined the request.
According to the Telegraph, a letter, sent from solicitors Russell-Cooke, said:
"Having carefully considered the content of the article Newcastle United have asked for it to be made clear that unless a full apology is received from The Daily Telegraph and the article is immediately withdrawn from the Telegraph online edition, then both Luke Edwards and any representative of the Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph will be banned from attending St James' Park and from attending any Newcastle United pre-match press conferences and all Newcastle United player interviews at the training facilities with immediate effect."
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The Telegraph said: “We regret the club's decision to ban the Telegraph from attending matches and press conferences, but will not allow it to prevent us providing the most incisive, trustworthy Newcastle coverage, rather than pandering to what the club want you to read.”
Daily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher reaffirmed the newspaper's stance on Twitter:
Things at Newcastle must be worse than we thought: they have banned our reporter Luke Edwards for revealing the dressing room is split
— Tony Gallagher (@gallaghereditor) May 1, 2013
Worse, they have engaged lawyers to demand a public apology 'forthwith' and withdrawal of Luke's article.I can help them here: no.
— Tony Gallagher (@gallaghereditor) May 1, 2013
@lukeedwardstele amazed at the @nufcfans who think it's some kind of 'plot' by us.It's not as though the ban will even work
— Tony Gallagher (@gallaghereditor) May 1, 2013
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