Breaking News: Newcastle Falcons takeover has been agreed

about his ongoing rivalry with Owen Farrell.

The energy drinks giant has agreed to buy the struggling Premiership club, taking on a reported £39 million of debt and vowing to keep them in the city. Crucially, the deal means the top flight will remain a 10-team competition next season.

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The Falcons had been up for sale for over a year, with owner Semore Kurdi no longer willing to shoulder multi-million-pound losses. Fears had grown they could become the fourth Premiership casualty in two years after Wasps, Worcester and London Irish.

Things were so dire, other Premiership clubs had even agreed in principle to loan Newcastle £4 million just to keep them afloat. But now, Red Bull have swooped in to save the day.

As per The Guardian’s exclusive, Red Bull’s plan involves staying at Kingston Park – shelving any idea of a controversial move to the Darlington Arena, 40 miles away. The club, rock bottom in the Premiership for two straight seasons, is set for a major reboot with plenty room within the salary cap to strengthen the squad.

Red Bull will use their brand and marketing muscle to target younger fans and Newcastle’s huge student population. A close relationship with Newcastle United is also expected, given Red Bull’s football links through clubs like RB Leipzig and the New York Red Bulls. Outgoing Falcons sporting director Paul Mitchell previously worked at Leipzig.

This is Red Bull’s first foray into rugby, but the move fits their strategy of acquiring underperforming teams and turning them into global powerhouses – just like they did with Jaguar Racing, now the all-conquering Red Bull Racing F1 team.

The Falcons have finally found their wings.

Former England lock Attwood has opened up on the latest RugbyPass Offload

The Bath lock won the last of his 24 caps for England back in 2016, which could have a lot to do with his relationship with the current England captain.

He revealed: "On the pitch, I struggle a lot with Owen Farrell. We just don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things,

“He hates me with a passion. Despite my earthy roots, he thinks I am a posh c***. He hates that. I bagged rugby league once jovially. I was saying it to take the piss kind of thing, ‘a bloody sport for the peasants’. He f**kin’ hated it."

"He had a bit of a shout at me and went off to the toilet and I followed him.

“We all had a drink or two after the game but we didn’t need to get carried away with this. I was in the urinal behind the door and he was three or four down and as I got in his dad walked in as well, he was coaching at the time. He was, ‘I don’t want to fuckin’ hear it’ or something like that and as he walked out he went to open the door and slam it into the back of me. There was like a stop on the floor so it hit the stop and almost clocked him back…

“We never really addressed it after that. That was where it started and it was like a drunken little bit of argy that went too far. He is an incredibly competitive athlete and he is also very f**kin’ good, he has got high standards. He is a very competitive athlete and in order to be that good, you have to flirt on the wrong side of competitive.

“So whenever we play each other there is always some element in the game where one of us is running at the other one or we are trying to bang each other. There always seems to be an element of that to it. I am sure he is like, I don’t even know that Dave is playing.”

The Scotland back-rower was the instigator in some tunnel argy-bargy when the players returned to the changing rooms after the warm-up back in 2018 with Farrell at the centre.

Footage of the incident shows all hell breaking loose when Farrell barged his way past a number of Scotland players to confront Wilson, who had been attempting to get inside the head of George Ford.

Wilson later revealed he was banned from Twickenham following the incident.

“I remember that game, I was actually injured and after tunnel-gate, after everything that happened in the tunnel against England, I’d lined up a corporate gig at Twickenham,” he recalled to Rugby Pass in November.

“Had it all lined up, a little bit of cash, all excited, only to get a message back saying the RFU have banned you from Twickenham Stadium after everything that happened the year before.

The pair have what we can only describe as a love-hate relationship. As legendary as the 'best mates' videos were during the 2016 tour of Australia, Farrell certainly didn't seem to be enjoying it.