Owned by Public Investment Fund from Saudi Arabia (had 80% of the shares), Newcastle Football club is the richest club in the world with a collective wealth of 320 billion pounds. The closest in England is Manchester City’s Sheikh Mansour with a 23.3 billion fortune. The club was purchased from Mike Ashley in October 2021, and immediately the bar was raised high and everybody thought that a new ‘nuclear war’ will start between the Magpies and other rich clubs. New coach Eddie Howe has been looked by envy eyes, as he thought to be a lucky one, since he had a ‘bottomless’ transfer kitty.Where #THFC rank in the Premier League’s top summer spenders so far 💷Expect this figure to increase further next week once the Destiny Udogie deal is completed 📈 pic.twitter.com/sJLnUfbjPj— The Spurs Web (@thespursweb) August 11, 2022 But, nothing happened. In fact, if we look at the top 10 list of biggest spenders (so far) in this transfer window, Newcastle is at the last spot. With 57 million pounds spent, the Magpies are 10th, with the likes of Manchester United (59), West Ham (80), newcomers Nottingham Forrest (83) and even Leeds (91 million) above them. Surely, the transfer window is not yet over and Newcastle will certainly spend money for at least two more players, but so will other clubs ahead of them. So, why are they not spending so much?The Premier League teams have already spent almost 1.5 billion euros – and they won’t stopThe most simple answer would be: because they can’t and because they won’t. The first part of the answer comes from the UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations (FFP), which were established exactly because Manchester City and Chelsea spent piles and piles of cash without any restrain and if the transfers didn’t pan out as they expected, Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovich would just write another multimillion check. But with FFP, Newcastle cannot do that even if they wanted to, they have rules to obey now. The other part of the answer is that they don’t want to. The reason is there for all to see: Barcelona and Everton. Maybe the Toffies are a better example since they are coming from the same league and have a similar statue as the Magpies.The Magpies won’t let Howe fly away – the boss signs a new “long-term” contractKieran Maguire, a finance lecturer and host of The Price of Football podcast explained that.„They’re trying not to max out on FFP in the first year of ownership. Then, they would have no leeway, nowhere to go in 2023 and 2024. They have seen the mess at Everton, which is a stark reminder of what can happen if you spend money badly. What Newcastle need to do now is grow their revenues, allowing them to incrementally spend more on transfers“ he said to Sportsmail.Same players hand out autographs, Saint-Maximin gives luxury watchesIf we look at the numbers of revenue from the previous ownership, the numbers are horrific. When Mike Ashley bought the club in 2007, the commercial revenue was 26 million pounds. By 2019, it was only 28. If United want more money, and don’t want to gamble like Everton or Barcelona (and they don’t), they need to organize the club like Chelsea or City in terms of commercial growth and youth academy, and that’s why they hired Dan Ashworth as a director, a proven person for these sort of deals.##NAJAVA_MECA_6556947##They also can’t afford to make mistakes like for example Chelsea. Expensive flops like Lukaku or Kepa or Werner cannot happen in Newcastle, if they want to became a regular European club during the next 5 years. And that’s why the Magpies are determined to sign only the right players for normal value and groom their own ‘Neymars’ and ‘Van Dijks’, not buy them. That is why they didn’t went to a bidding war with PSG over Etikite and didn’t make a third offer for Maddison, after a 40 million one was rejected. That is why they won’t sign a Benfica striker Goncalo Ramos if the price comes south of 40 million pounds. Lets wait and see if this plan works.
