In amongst all of the transfer madness over the past few days, an interesting and potentially massive update has emerged from The Times‘ Martin Hardy on our summer spending power.
The North-East reporter reveals that we are ‘set to announce a series of sponsorship deals in the forthcoming weeks’ that will hand our summer budget another major boost and increase turnover at the club; which rose to £250m in the latest accounts.
The commercial deals we have agreed are not revealed in the piece, but this is exactly what we needed to hear in our ongoing battle with FFP/PSR regulations. Boosting revenue streams = more money to spend and less need to sell our star players.
Hardy adds that we are due £37m from our participation in the UEFA Champions League, while lucrative deals with Adidas – who will become our official kit manufacturer for the 2024/25 season onwards – and front of shirt sponsor Sela will also be factored into next year’s accounts, giving us more wiggle room to spend this summer.
With all of this in mind, it makes you wonder if a portion of our summer budget could be brought forward over the final 10 days of the January window, should the right player become available at the right price.
The bulk of our spending in 2024 is bound to take place this summer, where player trading will be a theme, but with £400m spent since the PIF takeover and FFP hampering our ability to make signings this month, a raft of new sponsorship deals will be a timely boost and will be one to watch in the coming weeks.
