Saudi Arabia PIF won’t commit to fully paying for new Newcastle United stadium – Report | OneFootball

Fans are still awaiting news on the new Newcastle United stadium.

The club have indicated a number of times that they would be making an announcement on what they have planned, only to each time then say the planned update has been put back to a later date.

The latest instance came when early in 2025 an announcement on the new Newcastle United stadium was due, only for the club hierarchy to reveal that definitely/maybe sometime later this year the fans should get an update.

It has been widely reported that the Newcastle United owners are understood to be favouring a brand new Newcastle United stadium to be built very close to St James’ Park, partly or wholly on land currently occupied by Leazes Park. With then any land lost by Leazes Park, to be replaced by turned into park land, part of what is currently occupied by NUFC.

A new report has now claimed details not on the location of the new Newcastle United stadium, or what the capacity will be. Instead, it has made claims on how the new stadium is set to be financed.

The Mail report that their information is that a new Newcastle United stadium wouldn’t be fully funded by the Saudi Arabia PIF.

Instead, they report that their understanding is that; ‘…a pitch document has been circulated with a view to securing finance on the project. While still at an exploratory stage, it is thought any debt would belong to the club in the long term, rather than PIF. For example, if the cost of a new stadium is to total £2billion, it could be that half would be funded by PIF and the Reuben Brothers (15 per cent owners) and half taken out as a loan. Sources have stressed that this is standard practice and is the finance model used by other Premier League clubs when building new stadiums or redeveloping existing ones.’

I have always been of the opinion that Newcastle United is an investment for the Saudi Arabia PIF and for the Reuben family. Rather than some money no object prestige project as so many other United fans want to believe. Basically, at some point in the future the idea will be for the Newcastle United owners to sell the club and make a profit, which indeed they could do now if they wanted to. Including the extra money the PIF and Reuben family have put in so far to grow the club, on top of the initial purchase cost, a sale of Newcastle United at the present time would give these owners a very healthy profit.

However, for big capital projects, rich owners can put the money into the club to pay for a new stadium, or improved existing stadium, and/or of course a new training complex, with a view to that massively increasing the value of the football club, their business. So that when they eventually come to sell the club/business, they get that money back and more, with a much better, bigger and more valuable asset to sell.

If the club has to fund some or all of the cost of building a new stadium from normal operating revenues and/or a loan, there are two obvious drawbacks.

If the club is making interest payments on a loan to finance a new stadium, then that of course reduces the amount of money available to run the club on a day to day, year to year basis, meaning less money to spend on players etc.

Then for the Newcastle United owners themselves, it would also mean that in effect they (Saudi Arabia PIF and the Reuben family) are long-term paying a lot of extra money themselves on this loan interest, as of course between them they wholly own the club. So any extra cash paid out by NUFC on loan interest, is effectively less profit for the owner when they come to sell.

The bottom line of course for club and the fans is, that the quicker the new Newcastle United stadium is built, the quicker it will be that far more fans will be able to watch their team AND the quicker it will be that these far higher new stadium-generated revenues will be coming into the club. Which will help it become far more competitive on and off the pitch.