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Opinion

Newcastle United should be ashamed

4 years ago
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The world as we know it is a very different place right now, the virus has changed our everyday lives as we know it, thousands upon thousands of people have had the sad news that they have lost family members due to the ongoing pandemic.

Businesses are struggling right now, a lot of people have lost their jobs, financial experts have stated ‘the economy may never recover’…

Then you come to the world of Football.

Gary Neville pointed out on the football show on 15th April that 50% of players who are in EFL Leagues One and Two are out of contract as of 30th June and with the current financial state of the sport, an extremely large portion of those players may not get another contract. Be that with their existing club or any other, as they will need to be extremely careful with their finances and won’t hand out any unnecessary contracts.

Many clubs in the lower divisions have taken advantage of the government’s job retention scheme, placing non-playing staff and in some cases players, on furlough. They don’t have big alternative sources of income such as large sponsorship deals and TV rights money coming into the club, a lot of it comes from gate receipts and matchday sales.

Premier League clubs rely far less on matchday revenues and yet a number of them went ahead anyway and also took advantage of this scheme. Liverpool, Tottenham, Bournemouth and Newcastle United did (Newcastle the first club in the top tier), three of the four then reversed their decision due to fan pressure….which club hasn’t made the U-turn? You might have guessed it, Newcastle United. The only other PL club still taking advantage of the furlough scheme are Norwich, they are certainties for relegation and have the least wealthy owners in the top tier.

Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley is worth a reported £2.9billion and yet he can’t afford to pay his staff…?

I find this not only hard to believe but absolutely disgusting.

How can the club afford to spend £40m+ on a player less than 12 months ago, yet now can’t take responsibility for paying their non-playing employees until they return to work?

Are Newcastle United in some sort of financial crisis that we don’t know about (it was only the end of January when Steve Bruce said Newcastle had seen a £40m+ bid turned down for a midfielder)?

Have Mike Ashley / Newcastle United got no money left in the bank? Are we going to go to the wall?

Or is it just a case of Michael James Wallace Ashley saving a few quid by any means necessary?

I firmly believe it’s the latter and it’s nothing short of disgusting, the staff who will be relying on the government / taxpayers to financially support them, won’t be on large contracts like the players. We aren’t talking about Shelvey who is on a reported £80,000 per month, it’s the tea lady, the catering staff, the box office team etc.

Newcastle United have made the call that they don’t want to pay them during this crisis, Newcastle have made the decision that they won’t do the decent thing and backtrack.

I hope Mike Ashley is proud of himself, the extra few £s in his pocket must be important to him in this uncertain time, how could he live with losing a few million? Oh the horror!

Mike Ashley should be ashamed.

Newcastle United should be ashamed.

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