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Newcastle owners wanted Premier League title by 2030 and now their project is in tatters
Updated: 30 Jul 2026 14:25 BST |
5 min read
Analysis
The Premier League already has its first crisis club of the season. Days before England's top flight begins, Newcastle are in turmoil.
On Thursday, David Ornstein of The Athletic confirmed that manager Eddie Howe plans to resign following a 4-1 friendly defeat against Bristol City.
That loss has little to do with Howe's decision; reports indicate that he wants to take a break from coaching. However, the relationship between the Newcastle boss and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund owners has become strained over the past year, and things worsened when Howe was informed that the club need to sell players this summer to comply with PSR (profit and sustainability rules) and now SCR (squad-cost ratio).
Two of the club's best players, Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali, were sold to Barcelona and Tottenham respectively. The club earned €188 million from those deals and, so far, have spent €95m in the market, signing Bazoumana Toure from Hoffenheim for €50m from Hoffenheim, Sean Steur from Ajax for €23.5m and Ewen Jaouen from Reims for €21.5m.
They run a major risk of losing another star in Bruno Guimaraes, too, as the Brazilian is pushing hard for a move to Arsenal.
A year ago, they spent big, but the acquisitions of Anthony Elanga, Jacob Ramsey, Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa provided a disastrous return on their near €240m spend. Of their 2025 business, only centre-back Malick Thiaw could be considered a success story.
When the Saudi PIF took over the club, they became the richest in the world - at least on paper. With unlimited funds, supposedly at their disposal, fans dreamed of the best of the best coming to St. James' Park. Even Kylian Mbappe emerged as a dream signing for Magpies fans.
Other Premier League clubs were worried that they had another Manchester City on their hands, but things haven't worked out that way. While City won the Premier League for the first time just three years and seven months after their Abu Dhabi takeover, Newcastle only have a League Cup to their name five years after the PIF investment.
Given the present situation - the uncertainty in the dugout and at boardroom level - it's important to look back at targets made by the club previously. One of those was to become Premier League champions by 2030.
As recently as February, when asked if Newcastle could win the league within 10 years, CEO David Hopkinson told TalkSPORT: “I think 10 years is too long. We have a high ambition here, we have a concrete plan, it’s a five-year plan that takes us through 2030, it has benchmarks along the way.
"A plan without a timeframe attached to it is just a fantasy; it’s a dream. We have a plan here, we have a strategy here, we’re working on it every single day, but 10 years is too long. This is not a 10-year project, the club and owners want to win the league by 2030.”
He was appointed in September by the PIF to catalyse a similar transformational impact on Newcastle.
The club need to find a way to increase revenue. This is the only formula to spending big without breaking Profit and Sustainability rules. The money from the PIF is sitting there, but only earned money will allow them to increase spending.
They have increased revenue already - from €163m in 2021 to €460m in 2025 - but there is still a huge gap to the elite Premier League teams. Man City, for example, generated €809m in 2025.
City are currently facing 115 Premier League charges for failing to comply with FFP, and some of these charges are related to inflated sponsorship deals that are effectively coming from connections to their Abu Dhabi owners.
As a result, there are now more stringent regulations on these third-party sponsorships, and if this wasn't the case, Newcastle would be free to utilise the PIF to gain billions in sponsorship from connected companies.
The club also need to improve their performances on the pitch and start winning leagues and trophies regularly to gain more lucrative sponsorship deals after they finished a disappointing 12th in the Premier League last season.
"Manchester City were able to get there earlier when there was no such thing as associated party transactions, when you didn't have to go through a constant series of hoops and constraints before being able to sign a sponsorship contract and they benefited from that," football finance expert Kieran Maguire explains.
"It's that much more difficult now and, if you're a sponsor, who are you going to try and go for? You're going to go for those clubs who have got the big trophies to put alongside their product."
In May, Howe was forced to field questions about the PIF's commitment to Newcastle after the wealth fund pulled its funding for LIV Golf.
"The desire is unchanged," he said. "It's to try and get to the top of the Premier League, to try and consistently win as many trophies as possible. I don't think that will change while the PIF are our owners, part owners or majority owners. They are very ambitious for the football club.
"They clearly care so much about the football club [given] the long-term planning that's going on, on a number of levels.
"[There are] very exciting times ahead for the club, regardless of what happens short-term. The long-term vision is clearly there."
Whether or not that long-term vision remains, Howe won't be there to see it, and it raises questions about Newcastle's desire to become an elite European club if they can't keep their manager from walking so close to the start of the season.
