While Liverpool’s recent mini-revival may have maintained a flicker of hope of the Reds making the top four it will take a quite remarkable late turnaround in the final five games of the season to make it so.
The Reds’ late 4-3 success at home to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday afternoon saw the gap narrow to Manchester United sit at seven points, with United having a game in hand, while Newcastle United remain nine points clear of Liverpool with the same amount of games played.
Barring a minor miracle it looks like the Europa League will offer Liverpool’s best chance of participating in European competition next season.
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One of the teams likely to take one of the coveted top four slots and the Champions League football that comes with it is Newcastle, a club whose own plans are ahead of where many predicted and whose success this season will allow them to significantly narrow the gap on Liverpool and their rivals off the pitch.
Newcastle’s takeover by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) in October 2021 was mired in controversy. The sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia whose chairman, Mohammed bin Salman, is the crown prince of the Gulf nation acquired the club amid a backdrop of scrutiny over Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record and whether or not financial instruments linked to governments should be allowed to purchase football clubs.
Enough separation between the two was deemed to be in existence, although that is an argument that rumbles on still, and with more than £300bn worth of assets under management and a seemingly endless pot of money for their project in the North East there was some concern among owners of the Premier League’s so-called ‘big six’ that there was a new challenger on the block.
While additions such as Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak have set the club back considerable sums, more than £100m for the two combined, the Magpies have made less of a splash with their cash than some thought, the project under Eddie Howe further along than many expected.
The restrictions that have been placed upon the club through the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules, rules that every member club must toe the line with, mean that the owners have been more accretive in their approach.
But the success of Newcastle on the pitch this season and their likely qualification for the Champions League, and opening up the potential to at least £50m when it comes to a revenue boost associated with both prize money and other factors, means that the club will be in a better position to spend more heavily in order to establish themselves moving forward.
When it comes to shirt sponsorship deals that was seen as one of the ways that Newcastle would be able to grow the business, using the simpatico relationships that existed within the Gulf region with major businesses to raise the commercial arm of the club. That is a process that has started but one that has been done gradually.
When Liverpool renewed their front of shirt sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered last year they did so at a reported value of around £50m per season. In comparison, Newcastle’s most recent shirt sponsorship deal with betting site FUN88 was valued at around £8m, just 16 per cent of the value of Liverpool’s reported figure.
According to a report in The Times on Friday, Newcastle are set to land a new sponsorship deal worth around £25m per year with an as yet unnamed Middle Eastern firm. Such a deal would see the value of Newcastle’s shirt sponsor at 50 per cent of Liverpool’s, rising around 213 per cent from the value of the previous deal.
In December of 2021, due to some pressure from club owners, new rules were introduced that required all clubs to prove that their commercial deals with ‘associated parties’ represent fair market value. Such rules were designed to stop the inflation of sponsorship deals beyond what was reasonably expected due to relationships with associated parties.
But with Newcastle having brought themselves into the top four and on course for what could be a third placed finish, their place in the Champions League next season means that parameters around what is a fair market value for shirt sponsorship has increased across the board for their commercial offerings.
Newcastle have raised the bar competitively to allow them to gain access to better commercial opportunities. The challenge for Liverpool and the other clubs vying to make the top four and continue to get access to the lucrative sums that European football’s elite knockout club competition brings, is to make sure that next season they make their current dominance financially tell in order to make sure they don’t lose their seat at the table and fall behind in what is now undoubtedly set to change from a ‘big six’ to a ‘big seven’.
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