Newcastle United could follow in Manchester City's footsteps by becoming a multi-club structure, according to co-owner Amanda Staveley. The financier was speaking at the FT Business of Football summit on Thursday and touched on a number of topics, including Financial Fair Play, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and the future of the Magpies.
Manchester City, New York City, Melbourne City, Yokohama F. Marinos, Montevideo City Torque, Girona FC, Sichuan Jiuniu and Mumbai City FC are just some of the teams under the umbrella of the City Football Group (CGF). Founded in 2013, CFG is the brainchild of Man City chief executive Ferran Soriano and boasts a wealth of clubs from every corner of the globe.
Newcastle and their ownership could decide to repeat such a trick on Tyneside, should it prove to be the 'right fit'. “Obviously if we’re looking at everything in terms of how we grow Newcastle, how we grow our brand, how we grow our club,” Staveley explained.
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“An opportunity to buy players affordably well, early in the cycle, is critical to our growth. We’re very focused on our academy and young players at the moment.
“Obviously we’ve looked at multi-club. Whenever you look at multi-club. you’ve got to make sure you’ve got the right fit. It’s complicated and we’re also looking at another structure, maybe something a little bit different that gives us more opportunity to work with a lot more clubs (without buying stakes in them).
"That’s at a quite early stage, so we’re just looking. I think anybody who is looking to buy any club is going to be looking at that multi-club model.”
Newcastle could have enjoyed such an outcome under Mike Ashley many moons ago. Former striker Michael Bridges - who has lived in Australia since 2009 - attempted to strike a deal with the Sports Direct and Toon supporters will not be surprised by the outcome.
Speaking to ChronicleLive, Bridges said: “Six or seven years ago, I was in conversation with the original owners of the Newcastle Jets. They were looking to sell the club so I tried to line up a deal with Mike Ashley, to make them a sister club of Newcastle United.
“But Lee Charnley did not want to know. If you don’t get past Lee, you never got to Mike. It would only have cost £5m to buy the club. They were more concerned about getting Sports Direct into Australia; the Sports Direct Stadium etc… that was more appealing to them. They did not see the bigger picture of exchanging youth development, exchanging coaches, things like that.”
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