Newcastle United is an ‘ambitious, long-term project,’ says club’s chief exec

NEWCASTLE: Newcastle United Chief Executive Darren Eales spoke on Friday about the “ambitious, long-term project” that is underway at St James’ Park.

It followed the release of the club’s latest financial results, the main takeaway from which was a need to significantly increase revenues and secure more-lucrative sponsorship deals.

The accounts for the year ending June 30, 2022, were the first filed under the majority ownership of the club by Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, whose tutelage covered about nine months of that period.

Newcastle reported a loss, after tax, of £70.7 million ($87.2 million), over the 12 months, a significant increase on the £12.2m loss reported in 2021. It was mostly attributed to transfer market costs, and a significant increase in the ratio of wages to turnover, which now sits at an unsustainable-looking 94.6 percent.

Turnover, however, was up, with the club reporting revenues of £180 million, an increase of almost £40m compared with the previous year.

“This is an ambitious, long-term project,” said Eales. “The financial success of the club goes hand-in-hand with our performances on the pitch.

“We have come a long way in the past few months. There’s still a long way to go but we are looking to the future with confidence.”

In the immediate future, Newcastle will take on Manchester United on Sunday in a Premier League re-run of February’s Carabao Cup final, in which the Magpies ended up on the wrong end of a 2-0 scoreline.

Newcastle have been plagued by injuries to some key players recently, including top scorer Miguel Almiron, and major January signing Anthony Gordon.

“Anthony did a very small part of training on Wednesday,” head coach Eddie Howe said on Friday. “We’ll see how