Rival club owner issues Newcastle United claim as £125m plan revealed

The owner of a fellow Premier League club has said he was approached to try and buy Newcastle United.

Newcastle are now in the controversial but capable hands of the Saudi Public Investment Fund having been taken over in October 2021 in a seismic moment in Premier League history.

A Champions League qualification and a lot PSR drama later, Newcastle are in a significantly stronger than they were in the dying embers of Mike Ashley’s tenure.

CEO Darren Eales has explicitly said that Newcastle will spend as much as they are allowed to under the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.

Meanwhile, the Magpies are also expected to soon announce plans for either the wholesale redevelopment of St James’ Park or a move to a new site altogether.

Everything the club does is geared towards eking out as much PSR headroom as they possibly can in order to reinvest in Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell’s transfer budget.

They are the richest club in the world on paper – and, even with their PSR struggles, now can lay a claim to be in the Premier League and European elite.

Things could have been very different, however, as the owner of another Premier League club has now revealed.

• READ MORE NEWCASTLE UNITED NEWS: Newcastle plotting ‘big six’ cash raid as chief speaks out of over £20m deals

Brett Johnson reveals he was approached to buy Newcastle United

It has been over two decades since Ipswich Town, once under the management of Newcastle legend Sir Bobby Robson, were last in the Premier League.

But after back-to-back promotions under Kieran McKenna they begin their top flight campaign against Liverpool on Saturday.

When the fixture list was released, the 21st December fixture may have caught Brett Johnson’s eye.

The Ipswich owner, who bought into the club via his Gamechanger group in 2021, has revealed that he was once offered the chance to be part of a bid to buy the Magpies.

Speaking to the Business of Sport podcast, Johnson said: “My partners and I looked high and low. We were interesting in buying an English club.

“I was approached by Peter Kenyon to potentially partner up on Newcastle.

“For a lot of reasons and for no fault of anyone’s, we couldnt get that deal done.

“But it gave me a real taste and desire to try and figure out a different opportunity.

“We looked at a handful of other ones, ones that were on the market, including Sunderland.

“Ultimately, what I wanted to find was where we could work on a deal in good faith.

“A lot of times, what happens is you will work on a deal – a Newcastle or a Sunderland – and someone comes in at the eleventh hour and it will get re-traded on you.

“So I feel very blessed that we had an opportunity to work with the owner [of Ipswich] at the time, Marcus Evans, and we were able to get a deal done.”

Kenyon launched a bid to buy Newcastle, which valued the club at £300m with £125m paid down upfront.

How much can Newcastle spend in the final few weeks of the transfer window?

Newcastle only narrowly dodged a PSR breach in 2023-24, when they had Champions League revenue to rely on.

However, while they missed out on European football for this season, their commercial and matchday income picture is expected to continue strongly, giving them more flexibility.

What’s more, the £70m financial loss they posted in 2021-22 is now no longer part of their three-year PSR calculation.

Their activity since the PSR cut-off on 30th June, before which they were forced to sell promising youngsters Yankuba Minteh and Elliott Anderson, paints a positive PSR picture.

Newcastle’s pursuit of Marc Guehi for what could potentially be their club-record signing does not bely a club overly concerned about PSR.

However, it could also be argued that they are spending big in the summer and may, depending on how their season pans out, recalibrate with sales in January.