When Yasir Al-Rumayyan boarded a private jet headed for Newcastle at the start of the month there was a theory the club’s chairman was arriving to read the riot act to senior staff after a fractious summer.
Sources tell i nothing could be further from the truth. It was, club insiders insist, a move to show support for the club’s new management structure, which has been put together with the backing and input of majority investors the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia.
Al-Rumayyan’s presence felt significant. Under the skilful management of Eddie Howe Newcastle raced ahead of their internal targets by qualifying for the Champions League in 2023, but a bruising subsequent campaign brought home truths and lessons to learn.
Newcastle still have a long way to go to become an elite Premier League club, which is one of the reasons for a wide-ranging internal audit of their performance and the changes that followed.
“It hasn’t just been thrown together,” one source tells i of the summer changes behind-the-scenes.
Director of football Paul Mitchell – a direct, energetic, “typical Mancunian” with big ideas to recalibrate recruitment – is the most high-profile addition, but James Bunce’s appointment as performance director was also critical.
It was done with a view to mitigating the injury issues that crippled them in 2023-24, while Brad Miller, another smart addition, also joined as chief operating officer.
PIF had a hand in all of this, with board advisor Jacobo Solis one of two representatives from the fund who were part of the final round of director of football interviews in the summer.
It therefore makes sense that when Al-Rumayyan met with Mitchell and head coach Howe in the St James’ Park boardroom, they were characterised as “positive” meetings.
“He’s super ambitious and wants us to perform at the number one level,” Mitchell says.
“He’s a very intelligent owner. I think he can see the club is growing but he’s smart enough to know it’s moved very quickly over a very short period of time. He knows infrastructure is important.
“He knows people are important. He knows a higher over-arching framework and strategy is crucial to get to where we want to get to.”
For all the talk of problems behind the scenes – and there has clearly been tension between Howe and Mitchell at points over a problematic summer – a clear-the-air meeting this week, as reported by i on Tuesday, appears to have reset relations.
Alignment ahead of some big decisions on recruitment strategy and planned investment in the January transfer window has to rate as a good thing.
But Newcastle remain a club in a curious place and Al-Rumayyan’s visit came with PIF’s ownership of Newcastle at something of a crossroads as we approach the third anniversary of the controversial takeover.
Suffocating Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) meant tough choices in the transfer market in the summer while a change in the club’s ownership structure – with minority investor Amanda Staveley selling her stake this summer and a new management structure with Mitchell appointed with PIF’s blessing to revamp football operations – has proved unsettling.
i understands that a re-drafting of the club’s long-term plan, aims and ambitions is also underway, although the internal goal to be “best in class” at everything they do remains.
The board have set Howe a target of qualifying for Europe this season – an ambitious goal given how competitive the Premier League is this term.
Bigger questions over the club’s direction do hang over PIF, though. Uncertainty surrounds the next steps on Newcastle’s burning stadium question, a huge infrastructure project which could cost billions but is viewed internally as crucial to their off-the-field ambitions. A new, bespoke training ground appears no closer to fruition either.
At a time when PIF appear to be tightening the belts on some of their overseas investments, is the same happening at Newcastle?
Speak to those with knowledge of PIF’s plans and they dismiss that talk. “The ambition remains but it’s exactly what was said at the start – they are long-term, patient investors,” an insider tells i.
The problem was, they explain, many misunderstood what PIF were in town to do and many of those in football believed the inaccurate portrayal that Newcastle were suddenly “the richest club in the world” and would be following the Manchester City or Roman Abramovich route to success.
“This is a real investment, not a vanity project,” a source close to PIF tells i emphatically.
And, it should be pointed out, it does not feel to many of those operating behind-the-scenes as if interest has waned.
Indeed, i can reveal that the club will shortly confirm a new appointment to the board connected to minority owners the Reuben Brothers who has extensive experience of managing their commercial property portfolio.
With the appointment of Miller, whose CV includes extensive experience of delivering on huge infrastructure schemes, it does start to feel like the club are getting their ducks in a row to commit to some big projects.
How PIF works
It would be understandable if Newcastle fans felt frustration given Manchester United’s stadium project appears to be going at warp speed compared to theirs.
An ambitious plan by Leeds United’s owners 49ers Enterprises to expand Elland Road to 53,000 was also announced at the start of this week.
But those who have worked with PIF on investment projects are not surprised that due diligence on the stadium project has gone on for so long. If they are to write a “big cheque” for a once-in-a-generation projects – those were Miller’s words last month – they will need to see it is worth it.
This is a fund that deals in details and “process”. Sign off on projects can take time, which has also been the case on occasion at Newcastle, i understands.
“What I found was the level of detail and level of getting into the minutiae of words and specifics was pretty high,” a source who has worked with the fund tells i.
“Also – and you’d expect this – everything is focused on the person or maybe people who are the small number at the top. How are they going to react and respond?
“That’s not surprising given the culture of the Middle East and Yasir Al-Rumayyan is also a very, very senior figure in Saudi society. A lot of the big public things Saudi are doing to progress their nation, he’s at the front of it.
“What was interesting was he had to sign everything off. There doesn’t seem to be a structure of other people being able to sign things off – he has to give everything the green light. I didn’t think that was a big thing but I would imagine sometimes that creates some challenges.”
At Newcastle it’s slightly different. CEO Darren Eales has day-to-day responsibility for club matters – “delivering the vision,” as one insider put it – although PIF are “across everything” at Newcastle.
For example, Solis, who held senior roles in investment banking before joining PIF, is one “important” figure who has been at the club “since day one” of the takeover.
His official role is “executive committee member” and viewers of the club’s Amazon documentary will remember him as heavily involved in the signing of Anthony Gordon, giving his view on Everton’s possible price tag.
Described by those who have worked with him as a “nice guy” and “sharp”, he’s a keen runner who has also worked on PIF’s LIV Golf and formula E series investments.
As the head of PIF’s European investments, he is likely to be heavily involved when a final call is made on how to answer the club’s big stadium question.
Stadium investment
PIF are certainly no strangers to pushing the button on big infrastructure projects. Alex Thomas, a principal at HKS, the firm who designed the breathtaking £4.8bn So-Fi stadium in California, is working with the fund on a $1.2bn indoor arena that is being constructed in the Saudi city of Diriyah.
He provides an insightful account of working on one of their “giga projects” alongside Diriyah company, which is an offshoot of the PIF that they created specifically to undertake the work.
The 20,000-seat arena is hugely ambitious and, in Thomas’ words, “radical, challenging and future-facing”. When you see artists’ impressions of the venue you can understand what he means: large gleaming columns constructed to look like fortifications jut out from the ground at the entrance. The design is a testament to what you can do with a lot of money and a blank canvas.
“What characterises the majority of projects that have been done so far in Saudi Arabia is the level of ambition,” Thomas says.
“It’s founded on the idea that this is a new start, we don’t have to do things how they’ve been done in the past, we’re going to do them our way.”
Thomas points out that there is now a “financial gateway” that PIF projects must “walk through” before they are agreed. What that boils down to is: does it make sense for the fund or is it money that won’t get a return?
It’s not inconceivable that the St James’ Park rebuild project is going through a similar process. Although those close to the process stress there’s an acute understanding of the central role of the stadium in boosting commercial revenue (a key aim for the club), the bill could end up being billions.
“If you think about how that (PIF) attitude might translate to Newcastle I would personally hope, as someone who lived in the city and liked the club, that the PIF element of ownership bring that same level of ambition and vision to the project at St James’ Park and indeed they demand it,” Thomas says.
“It’s then going to be a challenge to whoever is involved in the project to meet those demands, how you can create something progressive and that has hallmarks of PIF involvement but is going to work within the many constraints and realities of working on a historic football ground in England.”
The long-term implications of Saudi involvement in Newcastle
PIF’s presence at Newcastle comes as Saudi Arabia targets their next big prize – the 2034 World Cup.
If the takeover at St James’ Park sparked controversy on account of the Saudi state’s human rights records, they can expect unprecedented global scrutiny of the same issues when the world’s biggest sporting event is handed to the country.
PIF’s 2021 takeover was passed, controversially, after “legally binding” assurances were given to the Premier League on links between the state and its sovereign wealth fund.
The reaction was almost universally positive on Tyneside and while there have been points at which Howe has been questioned on human rights and some small protests at matches, largely those issues are not part of the conversation among the fanbase.
For John Hird, the organiser of the Newcastle United Fans Against Sportswashing (NUFCAS) campaign group, that is wrong. He believes there has been a failure of local MPs and representatives – including the media – to ask questions on human rights.
“It’s a question of trying to normalise their dictatorship,” he says.
“That’s what they’re trying to do and it’s why we have pushed back. I don’t think it should be normalised. The way (our) campaign has developed, it’s not just about Newcastle, it’s about the future of football. Should state ownership be allowed?
“MPs said before the takeover they would keep talking about human rights but have they? They haven’t.”
The future
Links between the Kingdom and Newcastle have grown but in truth the influx of Saudi sponsors that was anticipated at St James’ Park has been more of a trickle than a stream.
Sela are the front of shirt sponsors and Noon, an online retailer, is also a partner, but i has been told that there is no edict from PIF to solely target companies within their umbrella.
By the same token, there have been curiously few transfers between Newcastle and any of the four Saudi Pro League clubs majority owned by PIF.
“There’s been no favours whatsoever,” said one source. Indeed, when Newcastle needed outgoing deals to satisfy PSR in the summer, it was to Brighton and Nottingham Forest they turned rather than the SPL.
Instead, Newcastle are expected to build and thrive by building a modern infrastructure, hiring smart people and finding a good strategy.
Slowly that messages appears to be getting across to the rest of football and the club believe their rivals now believe them when they say they won’t pay a “Newcastle tax” on transfer deals.
Walking away from an overpriced deal to sign Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace in the summer will have helped on that front.
It is perhaps not the “winning lottery ticket” that former owner Mike Ashley told friends he believed a PIF takeover represented but few could dispute they have transformed Newcastle, injecting hundreds of millions to transform the academy, playing squad and club infrastructure.
A skeleton staff has been fleshed out with smart hires to look much more like a modern, ambitious Premier League club and i understands more investment is coming.
“There’s this tendency to concentrate on what is happening on the field with Newcastle and far fewer people look at what is happening off the field,” Simon Chadwick, an expert on Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, tells i.
He views what has happened at Newcastle as logical given the club was, in his opinion, an “opportunistic” purchase made partly for soft power and influence.
“It was always a proper investment,” he says.
“You have to understand Saudis are more fiscally responsible, they’re more stringent in how they control finances and there is a kind of traditional investment logic in that if you spend £1 you want £2 back.
“The smash-and-grab mentality at Paris Saint-Germain or Manchester City is absolutely not the case at Newcastle. Just look at the considered development of the commercial team. The people they’ve brought in are experts with strong background in the areas they’ve been appointed in. It’s obvious to me that Saudi Arabia acquired an investment asset, not a vanity project.”
That has implications for the long-term, Chadwick believes.
“I’ve said for a while now that if there comes a point where they need to sell it they will sell it,” he says.
But that point does not feel close, even if the next part of the club’s journey under PIF might just be the most challenging.
