By the end of the next week, the English Premier club, Newcastle United, might get a different owner.
Prince Salman Aims to Buy the Magpies
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman and the Public Investment Fund, whom he controls, engaged in talks with Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s current owner.
Allegedly, the sum of the transaction is around $445 million. After the entire process ends, the initial investments in the team will be around $250 million.
This surely means that another wealthy club will be born in the Premiership and that the most interesting and exciting competition in the world might be even better in the future.
Prince Salman is one of the richest people in the world, and the precise sum of his wealth couldn’t be said. He didn’t have any connections with sports before. However, it seems that he wants to follow the trend of the Middle East billionaires who buy clubs from Western Europe and pump enormous sums of money, making them super popular.
Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are just two examples of that, through which you can see the magnitude of those investments. Both sides have become ultimate rulers of their national leagues, and although City won’t win this year’s EPL (probably), the way they dominated in the previous years is pretty impressive.
Mike Ashley and his Problems
It is no secret that Newcastle’s current owner is probably the most hated on the island. The fans had constant disputes with the businessman who bought the club twelve years ago.
Newcastle has one of the most loyal fans in England, and Saint James Park is one of few stadiums which are almost always filled up until the last seat. All these people were very unhappy because of the club policy of not spending big money on arrivals.
Throughout the years, Newcastle often suffered relegation because of this, but Ashley didn’t want to change the strategy. Finally, this season he spent $50 million on Joelinton.
He was trying to sell the club several times over the past few years but never came to terms with the potential buyers.
At the moment, the club didn’t issue any statement, and we’ll update you on this situation when something comes up.