Darren Eales believed the £300million Saudi-backed takeover signalled bad news for the Premier League’s elite once the deal was completed last October. Newcastle United appointed the 49-year-old as the club’s new CEO on Friday night - ending his eight-year stint in the United States.
Previously at Atlanta United, Eales helped the Five Stripes grow from a newly-formed club to the second most valuable MLS franchise in eight years. In 2018, Atlanta won the MLS Cup just four years after their foundation, with Miguel Almiron starring in the final against Portland Timbers.
Eales will oversee the day-to-day running of Newcastle and fills a role that had been vacant since Lee Charnley’s departure last season. A new-look board featuring directors with individual remits is a far cry from what supporters were used to under Mike Ashley.
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The new CEO branded Newcastle a “sleeping giant’ on the day of the takeover. Little did he know the new regime would appoint him to make the big decisions at St James’ Park nine months later.
“It’s a great club, Newcastle, with a great history,” he told talkSPORT. “I feel for the fanbase. They deserve something like this where they've got ownership coming in that are going to spend money. I think they've been a bit of a sleeping giant in that respect.
“Of course, there's a knock-on effect if you've got the wealth of Saudi Arabia behind you. All of a sudden those clubs that are perhaps on the fringes of that top four are thinking ‘oh, dear, what does this mean for us?’
“It’s just another competitor. I think of my old club Spurs as a club that has always tried to run with a pay structure. Another club coming in that’s basically going to spend what it takes to have success just makes it all that more difficult.”
Eales ironically insisted last year that deciding who the new ownership appointed to call the shots would have a “big impact” on the Magpies’ future. The former Tottenham Hotspur director also spoke of the need to create a philosophy at a football club when grilled about Ashley.
“About Mike (Ashley), I mean, he's run (Newcastle) with a philosophy so, whether you like it or not, he had a philosophy and stuck to it,” he added.
“I think now the interesting thing is going to be in terms of who's going to be running the club. We've seen it when new ownership comes in, there's sometimes a period where it takes them time to get up to speed and they get (their) trousers pulled down a few times. Who they're going to bring in to actually run the club on the day-to-day is going to have a big impact.”
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