Newcastle United is considered the richest club in the world, but behaves completely differently. Where the reticence comes from – and why there are internal grumblings
In the fall of 2021, some Newcastle United fans had more money than usual with them at their team’s matches, even if it wasn’t real money. Grinning broadly, they held the fake bills up to the cameras or threw them straight into the crowd, cheering – they were suddenly rich, or at least their club was. But then reality intervened.
When the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) took over a majority stake in Newcastle United almost three years ago, accompanied by accusations of sportswashing, the club’s own fans hoped and everyone else feared that the Magpies would soon outstrip all the competition. Never before had a soccer club had so much money at its disposal in one go, not even Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain.
“By the skin of their teeth”, Newcastle avoided sanctions in the summer
Thanks to millions of euros of winter investment, Newcastle promptly managed to stay in the league and a year later made it into the Champions League. Since then, however, the project seems to have stagnated – if at all. In the transfer period that has just ended, the club, which had spent more than twice as much a year earlier, did not even invest €70 million in new signings and was even one of six English first division clubs to make a transfer fee plus. The broad grins are long gone for the fans, at least for the Magpies
How did it come to this? Why don’t Newcastle just spend all their money? The simple answer: because otherwise points could be deducted. Until the end of June, the end of the 2023/24 financial year, the club still had to sell players in order to comply with the Premier League’s financial rules. This was only achieved “by the skin of my teeth”, the new sporting director Paul Mitchell has just admitted.
The new sporting director causes a stir – and cuts Howe
The 42-year-old Englishman, who most recently worked for AS Monaco and before that for Cercle Brugge and in the RB cosmos, is in the process of fundamentally correcting Newcastle’s transfer strategy. “There definitely needs to be a more strategic approach, which we haven’t had in the last two and a half years,” he said at a media event.
Until now, “everything has been focused on the head coach”, Eddie Howe, who is said to have a chance of becoming the next England national coach. That’s why Mitchell has limited his influence on transfers so much – and brought in new performance director James Bunce instead – that he said of the transfer window: “I’ve probably never had so little to do as I do now. ”
In addition, unlike Chelsea in recent years, Newcastle have hardly managed to generate significant transfers. That is why they have not been able to spend more than around €300 million since the Saudi takeover, according to Mitchell. “We didn’t have the sales window we had hoped for – we need to look at that strategy as well.” At the same time, some of those who came may have paid too much.
With seven points from three games, Newcastle have made a successful start to the season despite all the frustration in the squad. But only in five years’ time will we know whether the new measures were the right ones, says Mitchell. It remains to be seen whether everyone has this patience at the nouveau riche club, where the “new” is no longer quite right – and the “rich” somehow isn’t either
