How long does it take for Newcastle to compete with Manchester City?
In October last year – in the first game after completing Newcastle’s controversial £305million Acquisition supported by Saudi Arabia – 19th-ranked Steve Bruce’s team lost at home to Tottenham when “no noise from the Saudi boys” came from the away end at St James’ Park.
What remains is the Public Investment Fund, which owns 80% of the club largely silent it’s better to let your money do the talking.
But after that loss to Spurs, which quickly demonstrated the magnitude of the task ahead, the new owners demonstrated their resolve by sacking Bruce and replacing him with Eddie Howe.
The Magpies are now seventh in the Premier League and as new owners celebrate their one-year anniversary, PIF governor and Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has spoken out twice this week.
In an open letter to Newcastle fanshe described each season as “a building block towards our goal – to fight for trophies both domestically and in Europe”.
In a rare interview with a Saudi broadcaster, he was more revealing and seemed to hint that Newcastle and Chelsea could fill the same spot.
“You can see that Chelsea was sold for $3.5 billion,” he said. “So my potential now is to go from $350 million to at least $3.5 billion.”
In fact, Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly, who is friends with Newcastle co-owners Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, has previously spoken about how the Premier League’s ‘big six’ become the ‘big seven’ following the Magpies’ takeover .
There is no doubt that Newcastle is a club that has changed, from their player spending to Howe having to answer questions about alleged human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, the war in Yemen or the color of Newcastle’s third kit.
However, some supporters will be more focused on whether Newcastle can live up to Boehly’s bills and wonder how long it will take to get there.
Premier League form table since Newcastle takeover – 7 October 2021 to 7 October 2022
“Joy has returned and tickets are like gold dust”
Al Rumayyan has yet to raise any questions about PIF’s ownership of Newcastle or that fund’s proximity to the Saudi state.
A man who also handles assets worth £550 billion for the PIF, he has been to St.
Newcastle stagnated under former owner Mike Ashley and many fans turned their backs on the club and Ashley had to hand out discounted tickets to keep the stadium full. Now tickets are like “gold dust” and fans are dreaming of Europe.
Newcastle fan Yousef Hatem, writing for the club’s True Faith fanzine, says: “I don’t think the acquisition has made me more of a supporter, but there has been a massive shift in what this club actually is supports means.
“Before, fan podcasts or WhatsApp groups were only about legal matters. It actually had nothing to do with why we love football.
“Now it’s about who to sign and how to set up midfield. And we’re looking forward to the next game. It’s a lot more entertaining as fans and last year has reminded us why we all love football.” first of all.”
Newcastle partner Staveley on the hopes going forward
The stadium was repainted, the training ground and dressing rooms were renovated, the backcourt staff was hired. The £200m transfer spend for eight players included a record £60m deal for Alexander Isak, but dates off the pitch were seen as equally important.
The recruitment of Dan Ashworth as the club’s sporting director has been seen as a coup, while the club’s new chief executive Darren Eales is tasked with commercial growth – a factor neglected under the previous owner.
On the field, Newcastle’s points tally has put them in the top six in the Premier League since taking over in October 2021, a point ahead of Manchester United – despite having played a game more.
Although results have been mixed so far this season, the thrilling 3-3 draw against Manchester City showed the side are as entertaining as they are effective.
Aside from Isak, Chris Wood and Bruno Guimaraes, Howe has mostly spent on Newcastle defence, making them harder to beat. A recent string of draws and injuries for Callum Wilson and Allan Saint-Maximin shows that the next few transfer windows will need to focus on more attacking players if they are to match or break the Premier League’s top flight.
These players are unlikely to come all at once. In his open letter, Al Rumayyan referred to the “patience and perseverance” needed to achieve Newcastle’s goals.
But breaking the club’s transfer record shows their intent and with strikers more expensive, Isak’s signing could signal the start of the next phase.
The key to this will be to generate more income. Despite PIF having enormous assets, the club has to reconcile all expenses with Financial Fair Play regulations, which is why they are ending their shirt sponsorship early at the end of this season, for example.
“What impressed me the most about the new owners is how they took everyone with them and how they managed the expectations,” says Hatem. “They didn’t come in and promised too much but they said it was a five to 10 year plan and explained how difficult it would be to win the title or get into the Champions League.
“I think people got the impression that this is a long-term project that is looking at root and branch across the club.
“Things as simple as painting St James’ Park, allowing the women’s team to play there, improving the club’s communication with the fans. They’ve set up the unspectacular, almost sane, corporate stuff so fans can trust them takes a little longer to get things right on the top end – which we all know is a bit of a journey.
“But I think the time frame is reasonable because the fans can see what the club is trying to do.”
“Progress will not always be smooth”
“It’s only right that I stick to football” – Howe
“Progress will not always be smooth – but we will always move forward,” Al Rumayyan wrote in his open letter to supporters.
While there have been significant gains on the pitch and within the club, the specter of Saudi Arabia and its ties to the PIF and, by extension, Newcastle remain. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the chairman of the fund that owns the club.
Since the Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle, some of the country’s better-known cases have come under criticism Execution of 81 people in a single day, and student at Leeds University Salma al-Shehab sentenced to 34 years in prison for tweets critical of the state.
Questions about killing Journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the war in Yemen have been attributed to Howe and his supporters. Many fans find this unfair but accept that they carry on.
“I’m interested in these human rights issues,” says Hatem. “I don’t think sovereign wealth funds should be allowed to own Premier League clubs.
“Fans and people like Eddie Howe and other people at the club on the football side have been empowered to answer questions that I think are broader and should be answered by others.”
PIF views its investment in Newcastle as an economic investment and not as an attempt to ‘wash’ or clean Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Newcastle will point out that the Premier League has allowed the takeover to pass the test of its owners and directors. A recently report also referred to the UK government’s alleged involvement in the takeover.
Amnesty International wants “a stricter property test to be introduced as soon as possible”.
His UK managing director Sacha Deshmukh said: “Although much has changed at Newcastle United over the past year, things have only gotten worse in Saudi Arabia and with every game the club is still being used to further the shocking human rights record of Saudi Arabia to wash through the sport. ”
Only board members from Newcastle, Staveley and Ghodoussi – whose PCP Capital Partners firm owns 10% of the club – have answered questions about sports laundry and denied the takeover was an example.
Majority owner, PIF, is yet to conduct a British interview, although Al-Rumayyan said he didn’t recognize the term “sports underwear” when it was put to him by ` Sport in June.
Simon Chadwick – Professor of Sport and Geopolitical Economics at Skema Business School – says that since three-quarters of Saudi Arabia’s population is under the age of 35, the priority for the country’s investment in sport is to partially accommodate this age group engage and entertain avoid them “getting excited and calling for change”.
He also says that a quarter of the population is either obese or has diabetes, so investing in boxing or football or even Formula One is seen as a way to avoid a “public health crisis”.
“I’m not disregarding sportswear, but there’s a whole host of other things that I think the Saudis want to achieve,” says Chadwick. “So when you get Saudi Arabian officials to dodge questions about sports washing, I think what they’re talking about and what they’re thinking about are some of the much bigger challenges Saudi Arabia faces as a country.”
Saudi Arabia’s socio-economic woes appear worlds apart from Newcastle’s quest for European success and may not be of direct concern to many of the club’s fans.
Hatem says: “I don’t think we should dodge questions and say we love Saudi Arabia, but we just have to keep exploring and engaging as we have done.
“But I also don’t think it makes us hypocrites that we want to keep following our club like we’ve always done. We followed them before the Saudis came and when the Saudis have gone we will still follow them.”
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