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Newcastle United player contract relegation clauses situation made public

3 years ago
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An interesting media exclusive on Tuesday morning, regarding the situation at Newcastle United with player contract relegation clauses.

After the weekend’s results, Newcastle United find themselves now the bookies and punters favourite to be relegated alongside Sheffield United and West Brom.

Despite Steve Bruce proclaiming it a great result, the woeful performance and point at The Hawthorns means that Newcastle are only one point above the bottom three, as Fulham finally got some proper reward for their performances with a 1-0 win at Anfield.

Newcastle United are actually sixteenth in the table, a point ahead of both Brighton and Fulham.

However, on a run of two wins from eighteen matches (all competitions) and so many dismal displays producing twelve defeats in these last three months and eighteen games, those punters and bookies seeing Brighton and Fulham as far better bets to stay up.

The last 16 Premier League matches have seen Newcastle United pick up only 10 points, less than all 19 other PL clubs, even Sheffield United (13) and West Brom (12). Fulham picking up 18 points and Brighton 16.

So with relegation now staring Steve Bruce and Newcastle United in the face, what is the position when it comes to player contract relegation clauses.

It is The Times who have broken the story and they have revealed that not a single Newcastle United player has a relegation clause in their contract.

They report:

‘The Times understands that Newcastle’s policy has been to avoid such clauses to prevent potential signings from being put off. It means that Newcastle, who are only one point outside the relegation zone, would have to carry their full Premier League wage bill into the second tier next season, if they go down, with top earners such as Miguel Almirón on £80,000 a week.

In their most recent published accounts, for the financial year ending June 2019, Newcastle had a player wage bill of £96.8 million. Since then they have signed Joelinton, Allan Saint-Maximin, Callum Wilson and Ryan Fraser.’

This is yet another illustration of the arrogance and stupidity of Mike Ashley and the minions who assist him in running (ruining!) Newcastle United.

Despite two relegations already for this owner in the past 10 Premier League seasons, he gets lucky with employing Rafa Benitez and NUFC comfortably stay up both seasons with minimal net investment in players (indeed, a profit on player transactions in and out during Rafa’s entire time at NUFC), so quickly Mike Ashley forgets what has gone before and thinks he is the one PL owner who cleverly can beat the norm.

He forces out a quality manager, brings in yet another clueless puppet, he (Mike Ashley) takes personal control of the transfer business and despite a £100m+ net spend since Bruce was appointed, the combination of a clueless transfer policy (£40m+ Joelinton!) and hopeless manager (head coach) has now taken Newcastle United to the brink of a third Ashley relegation.

Some of Newcastle United’s relegation rivals do have relegation contract clauses, with The Times saying that the clauses mean if relegation occurs, the pay of many players at these clubs will drop by 40 per cent.

Many Newcastle fans will undoubtedly fear that once again we would see most of the best players sold, with the individuals and / or Mike Ashley wanting this to happen. The club then left with a mixed collection of honest tryers and ‘star’ players who are on big contracts but have shown low quality.

Then if the likes of Steve Bruce or an equally poor replacement is brought in, it will be very tough to come straight back up.

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