Takeover hint arrives as billionaire talks up Newcastle United when asked about prior interest

Former Roma owner James Pallotta has told The Athletic that investing in a Premier League side “makes sense”, and even name dropped Newcastle United – saying our “great fanbase” and history makes us a prospect that interest him.

The American billionaire was co-owner and chairman of the Italian giants between 2012-2020 and has been linked with a move for our club in the past, but nothing came to fruition.

63-year old Pallotta left the door open to buy out a top flight club as part of a consortium and even had some kind words to say about our fanbase.

He made his money as founder of the Raptor Group, a private investment company that has interests in other sporting clubs around the world – namely the Boston Celtics basketball team.

Pallotta is worth a cool £1billion, which may seems like a bottomless pit to you and me, but actually makes him small fry compared to other owners in the Premier League.

Here is what he said to The Athletic about the possibility of a takeover:

“I do think that if there’s a place that makes sense for me, it’s the Premier League.

“It’s pretty difficult for an American — and I do think we actually did a lot of good stuff — but I do think it’s difficult in a lot of countries to deal with the cultural stuff, all kinds of stuff. There are just all kinds of variables.

“I think there are interesting teams in the Premier League that have great history and it would be nice to see them getting back to it. The Newcastles of the world. Great, great fanbase.

“Those are the kind of things I think would be interesting to be a part of with a good group and there’s more rationality there (at league level) in many ways, right?”