Staveley: I cannot wait to tear down the Sports Direct signs
Amanda Staveley spoke of her excitement at tearing down the Sports Direct adverts at St James’ Park, with the sponsor ban facing Newcastle United likely to be lifted in a fortnight.
A working group of eight clubs tasked with thrashing out a new Premier League rule on how much cash owners can funnel into clubs via commercial deals appears close to agreement.
It comes after the controversial new Saudi Arabian regime at Newcastle had been temporarily barred from announcing any ownerfunded commercial deals due to protests from angry rivals.
New rules ensuring deals are priced at market rates look set to be signed off at the next meeting of clubs in two weeks. As she left a meeting of Premier League shareholders’ yesterday, Staveley, a Newcastle director and a key broker in the takeover, confirmed she was “looking forward” to taking down branding linked to unpopular former owner Mike Ashley.
“This moratorium was so difficult for us,” she said. “We’ve really taken a big battering. And so I’m hoping that we’ll get this lifted as quickly as possible. And then the [Sports] Direct signage will come off.
“With Sports Direct, I’m looking forward to it coming down. It’s hard because Mike was very fair, he did a good deal. He was fair to me, I was a pain in the a--- to him for years.”
Staveley refused to confirm who would be brought in as sponsors, but insiders suspect the club will turn to the Saudi state airline or tour operator for at least one of their new major deals.
New manager Eddie Howe has been promised he will be handed significant funds to boost his squad in the January transfer window even if the proposed flood of sponsorship deals takes longer to activate.
“We will inject our own money into the January transfer window,” Staveley said. “We are committed to investing in this club. We do not need sponsorship revenue to do that. We’ve already invested £38million [of equity] last week and we’ll invest whatever we need to enter into the transfer window. So we’re not stupid.”
For Staveley, the most pressing priority now is investment in the training ground, which, she admitted, was “pretty bad”. Asked what sort of reception she got from other club chiefs at yesterday’s meeting, Staveley said: “I have a lot of friends at other clubs. And also I have a lot of respect for the Premier League.”
Other issues resolved at yesterday’s meeting included confirmation that next season will start on Aug 6, and stop on the weekend of Nov 12-13 ahead of the Qatar World Cup. The league will then resume on Boxing Day 2022.