Dan Ashworth and Eddie Howe. There is no doubt that Newcastle United have improved significantly in the last year. The expenditure has been considerable and so far, the new signings have been a credit to Eddie Howe and Technical Director, Dan Ashworth. However, the hyperbolic talk of how the Magpies are now the richest club in the world, a club which is about to brush aside even the likes of Liverpool and Man City aside is misguided.
The first reason of course is ‘Financial Fair Play,’ something that Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris St Germain didn’t have to worry about in the early days of their new wealth, but that has been discussed already. However, there is something else, whilst Newcastle’s spending has increased significantly, so has the spending of many other clubs in what was a record busting transfer season just gone. (more…)
NUFC’s coffers are overflowing, but the debt to Ashley remains Before I begin, my apologies for not posting these earlier, as I usually do shortly after the accounts are made public. Better late than never though as I still can’t find any other copies of the statement itself elsewhere, though there is a very extensive analysis of the latest accounts on the very good Swiss Ramble site if you haven’t seen it already. The link to a PDF of the full statement submitted to Companies House is below, along with a few personal reflections from myself.
Some personal notes on the accounts
Turnover
The overall turnover figure of £129.7 million is the highest in the club’s history. This was also true of many other Premier League clubs though due to the commencement of the new blockbuster broadcasting deal. On the £129.7 million turnover, the club made a profit after tax of £18.7 million, and an operating profit of £4.7 million. However, Ashley is yet to pay any tax at Newcastle United as losses from previous years have been deferred once again. (more…)
Before it all went wrong.There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Said Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and so it was with Newcastle United when they missed football’s greatest tide, leaving themselves bound in the shallows and miseries of mediocrity ever since.
To elaborate, in 1997-8, in the early stages of the biggest ever growth in football finances, Newcastle United were the fifth biggest football club in the world according to the Deloitte and Touche ‘Football Money League’ for that season. To make it seem even more unreal when we look at Newcastle United today, they were slightly ahead of Louis van Gaal and Bobby Robson’s Barcelona, who the Magpies had beaten 3-2 in the Champions League at St James’ Park that season. They also made the FA Cup final, after finishing as runners up in the Premier League for the second year in a row and signing the world’s most expensive player in the previous season. However the signs were already there, they also finished thirteenth in the League that season, the club lost some great players, Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, Faustino Asprilla and certainly not least, a 36year old Peter Beardsley. Kenny Dalglish was then sacked early into the next season and things were to get even worse under his successor, Ruud Gullit. (more…)
Exhibit A.Firstly, I should declare that this piece was originally inspired by another, one of several on Newcastle United’s finances by a brace of accountants who also happen to be Toon fans in the latest issue of fanzine, ‘True Faith.’ It’s a very good read.
Of course, it has been known for quite some time that Sports Direct don’t pay a brass farthing for all the extensive worldwide publicity they get from Newcastle United. This was something which was finally confirmed by the club’s financial director, John Irving, at the first ‘Fans’ Forum’ meeting between representatives of the fans, the club, and sponsors, Wronga.
However it certainly less well known that although Newcastle United have been paid the square root of b*ggerall for all those vulgar signs, they actually had to PAY Sports Direct half a million pounds in 2012-13 as shown in SD’s 2013 Annual Report (page 90 under “Related Party Transactions”). Here you will see that Sports Direct received a payment of £498,000 from “Connected Persons,” Newcastle United Football Club. (more…)
NUFC Blog on metro.co.ukMy latest story on metro.co.uk is now up!
As is usual with the Metro, it now has a veritable cornucopia of titles chosen my their crack team of headline writers, sub-eds or whatever. However, my original title for it was the same as this piece, ie “Sports Direct get free advertising, but what about Dunlop, Firetrap, Cruise etc?” so I’ll stick with that one here.
On the piece itself, well we all know that Sports Direct don’t pay anything for all the advertising at St James’ Park and the club’s Benton training ground. However, some of you who might not follow Mike Ashley’s ever expanding business empire quite as closely as I do may not know that there are several other Sports Direct sub-brands such as Dunlop, Firetrap and Cruise who are also advertising at St James’ Park on a fairly regular basis. (more…)
