Why Newcastle United are not buying | OneFootball

A lot of questions are being asked about why Newcastle United are not going out and buying players.

Surely we have to be in a better financial shape than we were under the Mike Ashley regime?

I was starting to think the Toon must have been using the same finance model that my ex was.

I was working overseas, sending cash home every month, then when I came back there was no money in the bank and we had nowt to show for it.

Did I mention, she’s my ex?

Or maybe it’s just not as simple as that.

The Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) work on a rolling three season window, so it’s the last three full seasons that we need to consider.

Before Newcastle United got into the first transfer window under PIF and Co, Mandy went to great lengths to try to manage Toon fans’ expectations.

She told us this was not going to happen overnight.

She told us it was going to be a long journey.

She told us that we WOULD win a trophy within five years.

Then Eddie Howe messed up our sensible thinking, getting us into the Champions League in the first year.

IMAGO/Every Second Media

I think it’s fair to say that when they came in, PIF and Co weren’t shy with the whole “spending money” thing.

Liberating 300 million from the coffers over the first 22 months brought about an incredible revitalisation that not even the most ardent of our fans could have predicted.

However, and I do like a good “however” in a story, it’s almost as if we didn’t see the whole PSR thing barrelling along Barrack road towards us.

Is it possible that, commercially, we were so inept, and didn’t see what was going to happen, that we suddenly had to slam on the brakes with regard to our spending?

Or was that our cunning plan in the first place? Spend big early on, do well, attract attract players and sponsors, then take a couple of transfer windows off?

Or did we just intend to buy players as we needed, thinking “what’s the worst that can happen? We overspend and there’s a fine?” A mere trifle, as they say!

Then Everton happened. Points were deducted and maybe somebody at SJP thought, “hang on a minute, they could be serious about this whole PSR thing!!”

At one end of the table a six point deduction could get a team relegated, costing a hundred million pounds plus. That’s one hell of a fine.

At the other end, it could drop a team out of the European places and down the league three or four positions, which could easily be 50 or 60 million lost in Prem place money and European revenue.

So what do you think it was?

Were we dumb, clever, or just cocky?

Eddie himself has stated that Everton’s points deduction “educated” us.

So therein, perhaps, lies a clue!

In my well fingered copy of Penguin’s “Footballing Clichés To Be Avoided At All Costs”, right up there with the crowd being our “12th man”, players being “unsung heroes”, and players returning from injury being “like a new signing”, is the evergreen classic “saved the club millions.”

While selling Anderson and Minteh allowed us to add 65 million to the right side of the ledger, if we’d kept them we might have gotten away with not having to buy a right winger and a midfielder.

As the cliché goes, that could have “saved the club millions!”

There, I said it.

Then you have to ask yourself, if we needed to sell to stay the right side of PSR, why did we then spend 20 million on a fifth goalkeeper that we clearly don’t need?

It’s all about scratching backs.

Wherever you find restrictive regulations you will always find creative workarounds.

I’m sure many of you already know this, but for those that don’t (and that was me, about an hour ago), this is how clubs are legally avoiding PSR punishments.

According to the regs, selling a player is entered into the books one way, while buying is done differently.

When you sell a player, the entire sale amount you get is credited to you instantly, but when you buy a player, you get to spread the debt over the length of the contract he has signed. Accounting on the never-never, if you like.

According to widespread media reports…

Newcastle sold Anderson to Forest for 35 million and he was given a five year contract.

Forest sold Vlachodimos to Newcastle for 20 million. He signed a five year contract.

So on Forest’s books for that season they get to say to the PSR goons, in one breath “look, we made a sale for 20 million (less the remaining amounts on the transfer fee they originally paid to Benfica, spread over what remained the keeper’s remaining Forest contract) ”, while in the next it’s “look, we bought a player for 7 million.” (Though that will be also 7 million in each of the following four years of Forest accounts as well.)

With Anderson a homegrown player and Newcastle United not having paid a transfer fee, that meant Newcastle United had an entire 35 million boost in that (2023/24) set of accounts.

Yes, you can actually buy a Premier League player the same way you can buy the latest trendy pants from Topshop.

As long as everyone is playing by the same rules it’s a handy workaround.

So back to “why aren’t we spending?”

If you look at the outgoings, it’s almost as if we got so carried away with the whole “buying players” thing, we just forgot about selling, which finally caught up with us last summer. Of course some players left, but there were no large fees involved. It was more a “salary off the books” kind of thing.

I would say at this point that it’s possible at times that at times we are maybe just a little too accommodating of the players’ “needs”?

Ryan Fraser, for example. We should have broken him and sold him for spares.

Much has been made of the increased front-of-shirt sponsorship deal, and switching our kit provider, though I do believe that the Turkish Hair Transplant Clinic didn’t do much for our image.

We play to packed houses and the only other way to do better in that department is to expand SJP or move to a bigger ground.

We’re renting SJP out for other things – there’s rugby, concerts, the odd car boot!

STACK seems to be working well, pumping cash into the club.

There are times these days when you almost wonder if 3pm exists on a Saturday any more. We must be raking in the TV cash.

Oh, and the Newcastle United owners keep injecting cash into the club to cover day to day running costs, in the form of extra shares – another legal workaround written into the rules.

So surely there must a wad of spending money lying around somewhere?

My personal theory on this is that while our revenue has increased significantly over the last couple of years it has not kept up with our increased wage bill, and while we’re maybe not skint, we’re nowhere near as flush as we’d hoped to be this far in, intimated by the need for the Newcastle United owners to inject cash to cover day to day running costs.

Newcastle United have bought a lot of quality players since the takeover but with them comes a “quality” wage bill.

As a bit of an aside, are the PSR rules designed to encourage clubs to plod along living within their means, or are they there to stop clubs like ours from taking advantage of our owners’ wealth, a term which, considering the slope on our pitch, is ironically known as, levelling the playing field.

The intention may be up for discussion but the end result is clear for all to see. Those who already have, get to keep it, while thanks to PSR it will take the rest of us a while to catch up.

If we’re not careful, football may end up being considered a business, rather than just a sport, where ALL clubs have to make a profit.

A business where a club must be able to “wipe it’s own nose” as someone once said.

I bet that sent a shiver down a few spines!

You know how kids have a habit of adopting pet words that they just slot into whatever they say? Ten year old wee Heinrik starts almost every sentence with “basically”, like he’s dumbing down what he’s about to say so even I can understand it.

Without wanting to sound like Heinrik, basically, because salaries have gone up, we need more revenue.

Selling babies from the academy that we have grown ourselves will be seen as being the most productive. So I guess that’s why we’re signing teenagers right left and centre forward.

Another top four finish and a few games across the channel wouldn’t hurt the bank balance, while an FA Cup win would bring a certain credibility.

While winning the Carabao Cup would put a trophy in the cabinet, the prize money would hardly cover the diesel to get us to the games.

I personally think a rename of St James’ Park is just around the corner. There will be a token “consultation with the fans” to find out what they think, but the owners will go ahead with it, citing our requirement to “maximise revenue opportunities” as the driving factor.

While I could probably live with The Sela Stadium at St James’ Park for 15 or 20 million a year, I would definitely draw the line at the Dr Cinik Hair Transplant Clinic Arena no matter how much they offered.

I hope we can get into our stride quickly and attract major sponsors with no connection to Saudi Arabia whatsoever.

I spent a fair bit of time in Abu Dhabi and Man City’s previous sponsorship deals with Etihad and Etisalat were once explained to me by an Emirati as “Sheikh Mansour just shuffling money from one pocket to another.”