Broken promises Ashley in danger of losing manager Benitez
Newcastle’s future looks bleak with an owner who refuses to change, writes Luke Edwards
Mike Ashley is a very successful businessman – a colossus of the retail world, a dynamic selfmade billionaire. And yet he continues to be an utterly hopeless owner of Newcastle United.
Hopeless because he keeps making the same mistakes and because so many supporters have no hope of any improvement while he remains in charge.
To understand why Ashley is here again, on the brink of losing Rafael Benitez, the best Newcastle United manager since Sir Bobby Robson, you have to appreciate everything that has come before.
This time last year, having been promised in a meeting with Ashley that he would be able to spend every single penny generated by promotion, Benitez was infuriated by a lack of financial backing, as well as the refusal to listen to his advice about improvements needed at the training ground.
On that occasion, he wanted proof before he committed to anything. Ashley could have provided it, and given Benitez the “complete control of the football side of the business” when he signed his three-year contract in 2016 – something which was confirmed in a subsequent official club statement.
He could have given him the television money to spend, but he did not. As things stand, Newcastle have made a profit of around £28million this summer. Benitez has not even been given all the money from the players he has sold to make room for Martin Dubravka (£4million), Yoshinori Muto (£9.5million) and Fabian Schar (£4million), as well as loan signings Salomon Rondon and Kenedy.
Ashley may have said, also in an official club statement, that he “hoped” Benitez would stay in May, but he has been unwilling to do the things that would ensure he will. Why? Because he wants, as ever, to win the negotiation, to force Benitez to back down, sign his contract and concede that, ultimately, power and control at St James’ Park is his.
It fits a pattern of behaviour from a man who is incapable of changing. This is a “buy cheap, sell high” business, the only club in the Premier League who have not broken their transfer record since 2005 (£16.5million for Michael Owen), yet repeatedly sell players for more than that.
They are a club who want to be in the Premier League and little more. Benitez challenges that. He wants to improve things, he wants Newcastle to realise their dormant potential, but he now openly admits the club are “moving in a different direction”.
This depressing situation is not simply a consequence of a disagreement with Benitez. It is an exasperating, repetitive course of action that will end in a victory for nobody other than Ashley.
It is how he does business and that is all Newcastle are – an extension of, and a vehicle to promote, his sport-shop chain.
It has been 11 years since Ashley arrived on Tyneside looking for some fun, promising to drink pints with, and sit among, the fans, rather than in the stuffy, sanitised seats of the directors’ box. He was warmly received.
But in the decade since, all that he touches at St James’ Park has turned sour. He no longer even attends games, forced to stop sitting with the supporters after he alienated his first managerial appointment, Kevin Keegan, in 2008.
The parallels between Keegan’s departure and Benitez’s dissatisfaction are obvious. Ashley appointed Keegan, was lauded for the decision, and then fell out with and ostracised him. Keegan resigned in disgust the day after the summer transfer window closed, 10 years ago, crushed by the refusal to sign the players he wanted as well as the failure to listen to his football expertise.
Keegan won a case for constructive dismissal a year later, when those employed by Ashley admitted, in court, that they had lied to both him and supporters about how the club would be run.
Ashley has not changed. He still employs business acquaintances to run the club and values their judgment above the manager’s.
He appoints friends on a whim. These range from Joe Kinnear, first as a replacement for Keegan as manager and then as director of football – despite his health problems and 15 years out of the game – to Justin Barnes, brought in to supposedly help with the sale of the club, but who is now effectively Ashley’s eyes and ears, more powerful than managing director Lee Charnley.
None of them seem to listen to Benitez, the man who was supposedly given full control of the football side of the business. If it sounds like a ludicrous way to run a football club, that is because it is.
Benitez will not quit, but neither will he sign a new contract. The relationship seems unworkable and Benitez will surely go when his deal expires at the end of the season. There is already talk of boycotts and the social media hashtag #Ifrafagoeswego, has already gained traction in anticipation of Benitez’s departure.
More militant elements are targeting Ashley’s other business interests online, bombarding their social media accounts, effectively shutting them down on Twitter and elsewhere.
That will irritate Ashley, but he remains an immovable object. This is a man who has put Newcastle up for sale three times, only to fail to sell on each occasion. For Newcastle, it really does seem hopeless again.