Newcastle ‘never’ want to use succession plan as club hit out at FFP rule

Darren Eales has addressed Eddie Howe’s future, the departure of Amanda Staveley and PSR during a wide-ranging sit-down with reporters.

The Newcastle United CEO spoke to journalists from the club’s training camp at Adidas headquarters in Germany.

Here are five things we learned from the Zoom call.

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Newcastle ‘never want to use’ Eddie Howe succession plan

There was only ever going to be one place to start: Eddie Howe’s future. This media call had been arranged when Gareth Southgate was still in situ, but the England boss’ subsequent departure meant that the FA’s interest in Howe was always going to dominate proceedings.

Eales made it clear that Newcastle would fight to keep hold of Howe and reiterated that the 46-year-old was the ‘right man for the project’ who can ‘lead us onto great things’. Eales has not held recent discussions with Howe about his future, but the Newcastle boss signed a new multi-year contract last summer, which does not include a set release clause.

Eales did allude to a succession plan Newcastle ‘never want to use’, as he spoke about ‘something when you’re organised you’ve got to be thinking about’, but the chief stressed that he expected Howe to be in charge at the start of the season.

The PIF and Reubens are fully committed

Newcastle have made it clear that the PIF and RB Sports increasing their stakes to 85% and 15% respectively is part of a long-term plan to become a ‘consistently credible competitor’ both in the Premier League and in Europe. Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has spoken of targeting ‘long-term sustainable success’ while fellow part-owner Jamie Reuben has vowed that the journey to ‘transform Newcastle into a major force that competes at the highest level continues’.

Eales, a key figure in the executive team tasked with running the club on the owners’ behalf, underlined their commitment to the project.

“This is an ownership group that have got a big portfolio of companies,” he said. “In one sense, on a scale of investment, it’s probably one of their smallest but in terms of profile and their interest, it’s one of their highest. We can see that from what we are trying to do at the club in terms of the journey they’re going on and they’re fully committed.

“We’re excited. I’ve spoken about the end of the cycle with PSR and this is a big year for us now going forward as we go on that journey to become a club competing for trophies and being in Europe every season. That’s got to be our aim going forward.”

Paul Mitchell’s central role

Whereas Dan Ashworth has made his name as someone who restructures clubs, successor Paul Mitchell is very much a recruitment specialist and the new sporting director looks set to have a crucial role this summer. Eales revealed that it is up to Howe and Mitchell to discuss ‘what sorts of targets they want’ and the areas ‘they want to strengthen’ in a window Newcastle are going to have to be particularly smart in. The repeated use of the word they was telling and Eales explained that Mitchell has been brought in to ‘channel Eddie onto what he does best and that is on the grass’.

Amanda Staveley’s exit was a ‘mutual decision’

A lot has changed at Newcastle – even in the last week alone – following the departures of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi. Commenting on the pair stepping down, for the first time, Eales stressed it was an ‘ownership decision jointly, a mutual decision’.

“Amanda and Mehrdad were very loved by the club and what a great job they did in terms of bringing an ownership group together,” he said. “They were diligent, they stuck at it and had the tenacity to bring the takeover through so they are always going to be in the hearts of Newcastle fans for what they did.

“They’re forces of nature so who knows what they are going to do business wise going forward, but I’m excited to watch them. From a personal capacity, a huge thank you to them because they brought me in. They were part of the process of trying to build the foundations for long-term success.”

Revenues set to increase to £300m-plus but Eales wants PSR rules looked at

The threat of a points deduction was a very real one going into the final days of last month and Darren Eales admitted that Newcastle ‘do not want to be leaving ourselves in that situation again in such tight circumstances’. Newcastle expect Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak to stay, but the Magpies did have to cash in on the highly-rated Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson to help bridge a sizable gap.

“From my perspective, PSR needs to be looked at because incentivising the selling of homegrown players is not good protocol to have,” Eales said. “We did not want to lose those players but again we had to do the deals we had to do to leave the squad in the best place possible for Eddie moving forward.”

Eales acknowledged that Newcastle had ‘not done a very good job’ in trading in the last 10 to 15 years and, in the previous three-year cycle, the Magpies made about £12m of profit on disposal whereas the top six’s equivalent figure was £156m.

Newcastle are compliant going into the next PSR cycle, though, and revenues for last season look set to be north of £300m, which represents another sizable increase year-on-year, even if the black-and-whites still lag behind the established order.