Newcastle co-owner confirms multi-club pursuit

Newcastle United co-owner Amanda Staveley has confirmed the club are looking to push ahead with their plans to becoming a multi-club structure, as confirmed by 90min.

90min revealed on Monday in the aftermath of the club’s Carabao Cup final defeat that Newcastle’s immediate plans, including those to recruit more clubs, were being pushed ahead.

Staveley has since confirmed as much, revealing at the FT Business of Football summit that the ownership team are considering a multitude of different options.

“Obviously if we’re looking at everything in terms of how we grow Newcastle, how we grow our brand, how we grow our club,” she explained.

“An opportunity to buy players affordably well, early in the cycle, is critical to our growth. We’re very focused on our academy and young players at the moment.

“Obviously we’ve looked at multi-club. Whenever you look at multi-club. you’ve got to make sure you’ve got the right fit. It’s complicated and we’re also looking at another structure, maybe something a little bit different that gives us more opportunity to work with a lot more clubs (without buying stakes in them). That’s at a quite early stage, so we’re just looking.

“I think anybody who is looking to buy any club is going to be looking at that multi-club model.”

Staveley also confirmed that a camera crew has been recording a documentary about the club’s takeover.

“There is a film crew who are making a documentary for Amazon about the behind-the-scenes work that we’re doing at Newcastle,” Staveley continued.

“They’re not focusing on it as an All Or Nothing, they’re more focusing on the commercial side. With FFP rules as tight as they are, we really do need to do everything we can to grow our revenue and grow our finances.”