How Newcastle United financed this £260m spend | OneFootball

Raise your hand if back in May 2025, you thought Newcastle United were going to spend £260m+ on transfer fees this summer.

Nobody?

Raise you hand if you thought Newcastle United were going to spend £200m across the three months the window was open.

What about £150m or more?

A few of you.

£100m or so?

Pretty much everybody.

So how did it happen, how did Newcastle United spend over £260m on new players in summer 2025 and maybe most importantly, how did they finance this record spend?

These are the six players that Newcastle United spent £260m+ on:

Friday 11 July 2025

Anthony Elanga signed for £55m from Nottingham Forest.

Saturday 2 August 2025

Aaron Ramsdale signed from Southampton on initial £4m loan deal

Wednesday 13 August 2025

Malick Thiaw signed from AC Milan for a reported £34.6m, including add-ons.

Sunday 17 August 2025

Jacob Ramsey from Aston Villa was next, a £43m deal including future add-ons.

Saturday 30 August 2025

Nick Woltemade signed from Stuttgart for a total of £69.3m, including add-ons.

Monday 1 September 2025

Yoane Wissa a £55m deal agreed with Brentford, including add-ons.

Those six transfer deals above adding up to…

A total of £260.9m on transfer fees by Newcastle United this summer. Whilst elsewhere there are claims that Aaron Ramsdale is actually an initial loan and guaranteed buy next summer in a £20m total deal, which if true, takes the spending commitment on transfer fees for the six up to around £277m.

Whether it is £260m+ or £277m, these are astounding figures. Especially compared to expectations of media and pretty much all Newcastle United fans only three or so months ago.

So exactly how did Newcastle United afford this summer spending spree?

I had an article published on The Mag on Wednesday, that was titled ‘Funny kind of disaster at Newcastle United’ and was in response to some neutrals and United fans talking about this summer’s window as some kind of a disaster. I think the opposite.

In that article, I also mentioned that buying and selling players is a little different now, in terms of whether you can afford them or not.

As in the past, you still have to have the actual cash to pay for any new players.

Whether one payment or a number of instalments, just like paying for anything else, you have to have the actual money to do so.

When it comes to Newcastle United able to afford to pay the cash, now and/or in the future, for these £260m+/£277m worth of summer 2025 signings. I would list the following transfer fees brought in.

£130m Alexander Isak

£15m Sean Longstaff

£18m Lloyd Kelly

£11m Miguel Almiron

£35m Elliot Anderson

£33m Yankuba Minteh

Those six sales all add up to £242m. Not a million miles away from matching the £260m+/£277m spent this summer by Newcastle United.

Yes, I know that some signings were still made in the near two years after the summer 2023 transfer window, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are still talking about not vastly different cash amounts being committed to, in terms of players coming into Newcastle United and those leaving.

You then of course have to also factor in, that as well as the transfer fees and saved wages on Isak, Longstaff, Kelly, Almiron, Anderson and Minteh. You also have the wages and/or lesser transfer fees that have also been positive when the likes of Callum Wilson, Ryan Fraser, Isaac Hayden, Jamal Lewis, Martin Dubravka, Garang Kuol, Odysseas Vlachodimos, Paul Dummer, Jeff Hendrick, Matt Ritchie, Loris Karius, Javier Manquillo and Matt Targett have exited St James’ Park since summer 2023.

This period of time has been a massive transformation.

The transfer windows of January 2024, summer 2024 and January 2025, were painful.

Painful but largely necessary.

Which brings us to PSR…

I mentioned earlier about the big change now in whether you can ‘afford’ to buy players.

As well as the basics of having the cash to pay the other club(s), you now also have to have the PSR capability.

This added layer of nonsense that makes thing so difficult (impossible) for Newcastle United and others to close the financial power gap on the usual half dozen suspects.

I said in that article on Wednesday that I would go into more detail on the PSR and Amortisation side of things, especially regarding these Alexander Isak, Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa deals.

These three deals illustrate perfectly, at least to me anyway, just how much better shape Newcastle United are in, from a PSR perspective.

I have seen much of the media make the simple equation that when it comes to actual cash, the sale of Alexander Isak has paid for both Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa. The reasoning being that the £130m Alexander Isak transfer fee pretty much exactly equates to the £125m or so that was agreed to be spent on Woltemade (£70m) and Wissa (£55m).

That is kind of true BUT for journalists to make out that these balancing out cash calculation comparisons are the main story here for Newcastle United, is simply embarrassing, it is laughable.

It is the PSR and Amortisation aspect of these deals that is MASSIVE for Newcastle United and the bigger picture at NUFC, what it means for Newcastle now and especially going forward.

What the three deals mean for Newcastle United when it comes to PSR and Amortisation

Alexander Isak

Alexander Isak was bought by Newcastle United in a total £63m deal (£59m plus £4m future add-ons) in August 2022, agreeing a six year contract.

The big important thing that helps with PSR is that clubs can Amortise the transfer fee of a new signing over the course of his contract.

So rather than the £60m (rounded down from £63m for ease of understanding) going into the Newcastle United accounts of the 2022/23 season and financial year. Unless the player leaves or signs a new further contract with your club before that initial one runs out, it means each year an equal amount is added to the bad side of your accounts, your losses is you spend more than you bring in.

So with Alexander Isak signing in August 2022, it meant £10m would add to Newcastle’s losses (or off their profits) for each of six seasons (22/23, 23/24, 24/25, 25/26, 26/27, 27/28) until his six year contract ended.

So instead of having a huge £60m to deal with in the accounts as soon Newcastle bought Isak, they could spread it out equally over the six years, helping them to buy other players as well and not go over the allowed losses of £105m over any three season period. Things like spending money on your stadium, training ground, women’s team and academy are usually not counted as money spent for PSR calculations, so in reality you can lose a fair bit more than £105m over the course of three years when it comes to spending money on transfer fees and wages.

When a player is sold during a contract…such as Alexander Isak.

The book value is an accountancy term which with football refers to the value of any player during the course of their contract.

So when Alexander Isak was bought he had a book value of £60m in the accounts, but each year that has gone by that has dropped by £10m. So after one year his book value was £50m, after two years it was £40m, then after three years £30m.

For rough figures, when a player is sold, the amount that goes into the profit side of the accounts instantly for that season, is the transfer fee you agree LESS than the current book value.

So with Newcastle United selling Alexander Isak for £130m and after three years his book value having gone down to £30m, it means that there is an instant £100m profit gone into this year’s/season’s accounts. That is massive.

Now we come to Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa and the deals Newcastle agreed for them.

For Woltemade, important to note that in December 2023, the Premier League introduced a five-year limit for the amortisation of player registration costs, with the rule applying to new and extended player contracts going forward. This prevents clubs from spreading transfer fees over longer periods than five years, which had been exploited to mitigate financial losses under Profit and Sustainability rules. The new rule is not backdated, so previous contracts remain unaffected.

So basically, that didn’t affect the Alexander Isak deal that happened in 2022 BUT it does affect the Woltemade one now. He signed a six year contract but only the first five years of it is the transfer fee spread over, affecting Amortisation and PSR.

Nick Woltemade

He cost roughly £70m.

So five times £14m these next five years. Which means £14m off the profits (or added to the losses) for this 2025/26 season and each of the next four seasons.

Yoane Wissa

He cost roughly £55m and signed a four year contract.

So if we round his transfer fee up to £56m, that is four times £14m. Which like Woltemade also means £14m off the profits (added to the losses) this 2025/26 season, then each of the next three seasons in Wissa’s case.

Taking all three together

So you have Alexander Isak sold for roughly the same amounts of cash then committed on both Woltemade and Wissa.

However, for PSR purposes and with Amortisation, the three deals mean in this year’s accounts, you have £100m profit on Isak but only £28m (£14m each) on the loss side for Woltemade and Wissa.

Of course, the seasons to follow you then also have £14m for each of them to go on the losses side, however, what it does do is now give Newcastle United massive extra room for flex when it comes to PSR at this moment in time.

The PSR positives of the Alexander Isak sale have not just helped in this transfer window, this season, but also the far bigger picture.

My guesstimate is that Newcastle United could have done all of this summer’s transfer dealings AND still kept Isak (but not bought one of Woltemade or Wissa).

So by selling Alexander Isak as well, even when you factor in the striker that has replaced him, it still means a massive PSR boost for Newcastle United.

Which means for example, I think Newcastle could also do serious business in January 2026 if they choose to.