Darren Eales has revealed that the PIF remain ‘100% committed’ to Newcastle United – even if PSR constraints have proved ‘frustrating’.
The Newcastle CEO was among those executives who attended a series of high-level meetings with chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan at Matfen Hall last week. Eddie Howe said he was ‘very pleased’ by what he saw and heard during the summit in Northumberland, because the drive to be successful was ‘still very much there from everyone connected with the club’, while chief commercial officer Peter Silverstone has also since talked up how those at the top remain ‘extremely ambitious’.
Among the topics discussed was Newcastle’s long-term infrastructure plans and Eales cited the ongoing and planned investments in the stadium and training ground as evidence of the owners’ ‘commitment’.
“From my perspective, and I deal with them day to day, they are 100% committed to Newcastle,” the Magpies CEO told reporters. “That’s the exciting part. There is no change in terms of where we want to get to. “The one thing we’d say is that we have to do that within the regulatory regime that is there. There is frustration by that PSR constraint. If it wasn’t for that, we could spend more on the team and accelerate our progress on the pitch. “At the moment, the way we approach from ownership down – and everyone is aligned – is that we maximise our revenues and with that we spend to the max we’re allowed to, so we incur those losses of £105m over three years to give Eddie and the team the best possible players on the pitch that he wants. We’re in alignment in terms of how we build that squad. “It’s frustrating because we want to go from A to B in three years, but we can’t do what was done in the past. The days of an [Roman] Abramovich or Man City in the early days, you just can’t do that anymore. You can front load the spend, but you have to pay the piper.
“It’s frustrating because we want to go from A to B in three years, but we can’t do what was done in the past. The days of an [Roman] Abramovich or Man City in the early days, you just can’t do that anymore. You can front load the spend, but you have to pay the piper.
