It wouldn't be Newcastle if there wasn't a bizarre, hyperbolic twist from a bizarre, hyperbolic man.

On Thursday night, a reporter from The Independent newspaper went to watch a comedian in central London. Emerging from the gig he saw Newcastle owner Mike Ashley standing with a pint in his hand outside a pub. (Which to those who don't know the secretive Ashley - which is most of us - seems to be a depiction of him in his perceived natural habitat.)

He identified himself as a journalist and asked about Alan Pardew's future ahead of tomorrow's game against Stoke. "He's got one more game," Ashley said. "If we lose against Stoke on Monday night then he's gone. I have had enough."

Then he made a throat-cutting gesture. And he added: "Dead. Finished. Over. One more then that's it. I have spent a lot of money on that club, it's cost me a lot. I won't put up with it any more. One more loss and he's gone."

Ashley's lawyer popped up the next day suggesting his client had made a "joke" and that his comments were "tongue in cheek".

Now, because Ashley never speaks to the press - apart from Thursday's "joke" - we have little clue what he's like. We judge him to some degree from his running of the club, the two-time appointment of Joe Kinnear, the incessant ups and downs and that TV footage of him yukking it up in a Newcastle jersey and downing a pint. And we know he's a self-made multi-millionaire, so - beneath the eccentricity - we figure there's a brain at work. A fairly impressive one at that.

Beyond that, we're in the dark. Does he really think talking like that to a member of the media makes sense in any context? Is this his idea of "funny"? Was he sending some kind of motivational message to Pardew?

Any theory is plausible.

And that is what enables you to have some sympathy for Pardew, despite his various shenanigans: head-butting David Meyler, calling Manuel Pellegrini an "old c***" and, most of all, winning four league games in the past nine months. Like some mad avant-garde play, there are villains and no heroes. Newcastle fans can't seem to decide who they like less: Pardew or Ashley. And that won't change, even if they romp past Stoke tomorrow night.

People will continue to debate whether Financial Fair Play serves its purpose and whether the worst offenders, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City, were sufficiently punished when they reached their "settlement agreements" with Uefa. When you look at the terms - such as limiting net transfer spend to less than £47m and Champions League squad sizes to 21 - it seems crazy to suggest these clubs have been hamstrung. But then you consider PSG's tailspin - one win in their past four going into the weekend - and Man City's injuries and you start to wonder.

When they take on Roma on Tuesday night in the Champions' League, they'll do so without Fernando, Stevan Jovetic and Samir Nasri and with a banged-up Sergio Aguero and David Silva. They do have other options, but when you throw in Yaya Toure's indifferent start to the season, a Fernandinho who hasn't been himself since before the World Cup and a Frank Lampard who is 36, you begin to see the impact. Particularly given the nature of their group, where anything other than a win could see things get rather complicated. If they split their games against Roma, but the Giallorossi out-perform them against Bayern, which isn't far-fetched, then things get very hairy, very quickly.

Tuesday night is the classic "trap" game. Uncomplicated on paper, but potentially derailing and unsettling if things don't go to plan. You're not going to feel sorry for them. But if you were an Emirati billionaire used to writing cheques to solve problems, you might just feel a little hard done by.

It's funny how things get pushed to the top of the football agenda. Back in 2007, Sepp Blatter promised he would ban third-party ownership. Now, seven years later, the Fifa supremo is making the same pledge after an internal report described the practice as engendering a "vicious cycle of debt and dependency". You can wonder why he sat on his behind for seven years. After all, it's not as if he was anything other than the head of football's governing body between 2007 and 2014. Or you can take a better-late-than-never approach, though at this stage it may be wisest to conclude that we'll believe it when it happens.

Right now, Fifa's statutes allow "third-party ownership" but not "third-party influence". What's the difference? Well, it's OK to give a club money to purchase a player in exchange for a slice of the revenue from future sales. You fund the transfer of a £4m right-back to the tune of £2m and then, when he's sold for the £10m, you get to keep £5m.

It's not OK, however, to exert pressure on the club to sell said player so you can recoup your cash. Or, indeed, to get the player to ask for a transfer. That is the definition of "third-party influence".

You could argue that if Fifa simply enforced the rules, we wouldn't have a problem. But, to the be fair to them, they can't. You have many clubs that that are essentially run by intermediaries. And many of them arrange the funding for a transfer while also representing the player.

In those circumstances, there's every opportunity for major impropriety. And, indeed, the legal case between Sporting Lisbon and the Doyen group, who held a third-party ownership interest in Marcos Rojo over his transfer to Manchester United epitomises this.

Proponents of third-party ownership talk about how common it is in South America and how it helps clubs survive while attracting decent talent. But that doesn't make it right or desirable.

Is there a scenario where properly regulated and monitored third- party ownership could work? Sure. It's a bit like gun ownership. If we were all responsible, level-headed, honest and properly-trained and there was reliable oversight and background checks, then maybe we could all walk around with firearms and the world would be a better (and safer) place. But reality isn't like that. Which is why we have gun control. Third-party ownership might work and be good for the game in a parallel reality that right now doesn't exist. As it stands, it isn't. And even Blatter is starting to realise it.