When Darren Eales interview was released by Newcastle United on Thursday afternoon, some sections of the media went wild with their headlines. ‘Newcastle set to sell star player’ – ‘Isak, Botman or Bruno to leave as Toon confirm FFP issues.’
There’s no doubt his comments to the local press and NUFC TV raised concerns and flagged up the sobering reality of our FFP constraints, but they were twisted by some. Nowhere did he say our star men were going to be sold.
We have included those quotes in full (see below), but also picked up on this from our CEO – “We want to be a top six sustainable club and Tottenham’s latest accounts was £440m (revenue). We are at £250m, so there is a big step even to the lower end of the top six. We have also seen that Manchester City are £710m. There is a long way to go.”
This shows the reality facing Newcastle and exactly why the club are pushing to boost commercial revenues; which will be boosted by Adidas and Sela win the coming months. Our revenue (£250m) is up 40% for the second year running, but it’s still almost a third of what Man City make and just over half of Tottenham’s £440m total. We still have a LOT of catching up to do.
When asked directly whether Alexander Isak, Sven Botman or Bruno Guimaraes could be sold, he said:
“On any player, at any time, it depends on circumstances. It’s difficult to hypothesis but, if we’re offered £1bn for one of those players, then no-one could argue against that making sense.
“Any decision we make will always be against the backdrop of the medium to long-term benefit for the club. It’s difficult to say specifically on certain players, but I can say that, if we’re going to get to where we want to get to, at times it is necessary to trade your players.
“Whether that is because of the contract length of the player in question, the offer is too good to refuse, you need to reload in certain areas, but all of this could make sense to trade that player. It is counter-intuitive and part of the inherent system of PSR that there is an incentive to trade your players if you want to re-invest, by the nature of the boundaries.”
“If we’re going to get to where we want to get to, at times it is necessary to trade your players. It is counter-intuitive and part of the inherent system of PSR that there is an incentive to trade your players, if you want to re-invest.
“For example, you have a £50m player you can sell and you bring in another player of the same value. You might say, what’s the point in doing that?’ But, under FFP, if you sell a £50m player and bring in an identical one at £50m on the same wages, but amortise over five years the player you are bringing in, that’s only £10m a year, so you are creating £40m of headroom. That’s the reality of the FFP model.
“If you are churning players you create more headroom. We have seen lots of examples of this elsewhere. [Philippe] Coutinho at Liverpool and they brought in Allison and Virgil Van Dijk. [Jack] Grealish going from Aston Villa and they have reinvested and reloaded.
“Decan Rice at West Ham, it’s just the nature of the beast. If you trade players on it creates more headroom . You have to keep growing that headroom, increasing commercial revenue and player trading.”
It’s entirely possible that a big name does go IF someone comes in with a gigantic offer in the summer, but some of the sensationalism and twisting of words yesterday got fans fearing the worst.
Eales then had this to say on our bid to work within FFP and PSR (profit and sustainability rules):
“When the takeover took place, the PSR regime was already in place, so we have always known that those are the rules and we will always be compliant. But if you are trying to be an upwardly mobile club, it makes it a huge challenge. As an ownership group, we are process driven and we are patient. We are going to invest but the PSR regime undoubtedly makes it more challenging than if it wasn’t there. It would certainly be easier (without it).
‘We have to be efficient and maximise our resources. We can’t think week to week, month to month. If we are going to get where we want to get to, which is a top-six sustainable club competing for trophies, we have to take a long-term vision.’
