As we saw yesterday, Mike Ashley came out with an all too familiar line in his end of season n statement , promising to give Rafa Benitez his ‘full support’ and ensure that ‘every penny generated by the club’ will be available to him this summer.
My first thoughts – ‘we’ve heard it all before Mike!’. And Alan Shearer said exactly the same in his Match of the Day rant last night, claiming it was just a simple ‘copy and paste’ from the NUFC owner.
It doesn’t add up and it’ll no doubt have left Rafa scratching his head.
Ashley’s claims that Rafa will, ‘as always’, have his ‘full support’, claiming he will ‘continue to to ensure that every penny generated by the club is available to him’.
‘Continue’?? ‘As always’?? Our net spend was £13m this season and the club has made a £17m profit on transfers over the past two seasons. How on earth can he claim Rafa has ‘always’ had his support?
He came out with an incredibly similar line last May and we saw what happened over the summer:
May 2017 statement: “I’ve confirmed to Rafa and Lee that they can have every last penny that the club generates through promotion, player sales and other means in order to build for next season.”
May 2018 statement: “I will continue to ensure that every penny generated by the club is available to him.”
It’s positive that he’s spoken out (to some extent), but his comments may only serve to frustrate Benitez even further.
It’s been made quite public that the club have generated over £125m following our first year back into the Premier League, so is Mike saying that’s what Rafa will be given this summer?
That’s how it sounds, but we all know that won’t be the case.
Ashley admits he wants Rafa to stay in the statement, but he’s on a hiding to nothing and set for one hell of a backlash from NUFC fans if he messes things up with Benitez this summer.
Once again Ashley plays with words – his offer that Rafa can have every penny is taken by many to mean he can spend the whole lot on transfer fees, when in reality Ashley means every penny will be used to also cover agents fees, players wages (including amortisation of the whole contract fees) and any other associated costs – this is despite most clubs allowing ‘running costs’ to be covered by the usual in-season revenue generated
Patrick Church(Quote)
Operating costs generally run around £95 million at NUFC. Minimal transfers etc this season to have affected that upwards. It could therefore be a little lower.
£126 million in from Sky. At least £25 million from gate/match-day receipts. £28 million from commercial and other revenue. That’s £179 million before any player is sold.
Not unreasonable to forecast then that the club should have a minimum of £100 million or so after operating expenses.
Over to you, Ashley.
sickandtired(Quote)