Newcastle United: Unspent Riches
When Newcastle United were founded in 1892, money was in short supply. It stayed like this for the next one-hundred and fifteen years until the club was purchased by the wealthy English businessman, Mike Ashley. The arrival of Mike Ashley was seen by many as the start of an era of change. Newcastle were once a team participating in the highest level of not just English but European football too. Ashley’s personal fortune is estimated to be about £1.5 billion. Many people would still say that having Ashley as owner is a fantastic asset to the club. I disagree.
When Manchester City were bought by the Prince of Abu Dhabi in August 2009, the owners had £32.5 million spent in the first half hour. Since Ashley took over in 2007, less than £30 million has been spent on new talent. While at Manchester City, almost $200 million pounds has been spent willingly on new players and as a result of this, in the past four years City have won the FA cup, Premier League and have qualified for the Champions League twice.
This has infuriated many of the Newcastle faithful. Ashley has absolutely no interest in soccer. All he is interested in is his business. He even paid to have the name of his business, Sports Direct, as the name of Newcastle’s legendary playing field, now formerly known as St. James’ park. However, in recent times, the sponsorship of the jerseys’ on Newcastle’s players’ backs has changed. Wonga.com took over a small percentage of the club from Mike Ashley and paid him handsomely to change the name of the pitch from the Sports Direct Arena to St. James Park once again.
Newcastle have sold many big name players for huge amounts of cash in recent times, the most notable of these being the sale of Andy Carrol to Liverpool for a then British transfer record of $35 million. This record was surpassed later that day by Fernando Torres £50 million move from Liverpool to Chelsea. Other players such as Demba Ba, Jose Enrique, Joey Barton and former captain Kevin Nolan have also departed the club in controversial circumstances.
In closing, I feel the club would fare much better domestically and in European competitions if more money was allocated to the transfer budget towards the acquisition of new, young and interesting talent that would help to bring trophies and happiness to the now trophy-less and depressed team.
By dedicated, long-term fan Diarmuid Lee