Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson will this week meet the Newcastle United owners for a series of meetings.
The club’s CEO confirming that around 25 officials representing the Saudi Arabia PIF majority ownership will be at Matfen Hall, with Jamie Reuben heading up the Reuben family minority ownership.
David Hopkinson has been talking about the key upcoming meetings at Matfen Hall and what will be on the agenda.
The Newcastle United CEO David Hopkinson speaking on Wednesday at the SportsPro conference, held at the Oval cricket ground in London.
The meetings at Matfen Hall will include Eddie Howe and conversations about the playing side, including plans for the summer transfer window and indeed overall player recruitment.
However, arguably the business side conversations set to be even more important.
Newcastle United Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has previously stated that the ambition is for the club to be “Number One” in world football.
How to get to that point? David Hopkinson himself has more recently stated that the aim is to be competing for everything, all trophies/competitions, by the time we get to 2030.
The Newcastle United CEO doubling down on that intention today, with The Athletic quoting what David Hopkinson has had to say on Wednesday morning.
Ambition
David Hopkinson:
“Our ambition is ultimately to be number one.”
How to get to be number one?
David Hopkinson: “How are we going to do that? Frankly, money is the biggest piece of the equation. We have got to just generate more revenue, give ourselves a bigger envelope to work with. If we can execute superbly, there might be £100m in annual run rate revenue that could be unlocked. We are at about £400m [annual revenues]. That can become £500m, or stretch to £550m. We start to kick our way into that conversation. That is our ambition.”
The most recent available figures are for the 2024/25 season, when Newcastle United had revenues of £335m. However, before he officially left, the previous CEO Darren Eales had confirmed that the current 2025/26 season revenues will exceed £400m.
The only problem there is that the revenues are massively rising from £335m to £400m+ chiefly because of the astonishing job Eddie Howe did in getting Champions League football for a second time in three seasons.
The revenues had only risen by £20m from 2023/24 to 2024/25 and with no Champions League football in 2026/27, it is very difficult to see how the revenues next season won’t drop back down to under £400m, even if there are increased revenue streams elsewhere in the club.
New key staff appointments
The club have also hired a new chief revenue officer (CRO) and a new chief marketing officer (CMO), with the pair set to start work shortly.
The Athletic reporting: ‘Hopkinson claimed Newcastle have recruited a “superstar” for the CMO role, while The Athletic has learned that Dave O’Connor will start as CRO in June. A Geordie who has built an agency in Switzerland, Newcastle view luring O’Connor home as a coup. “We’ll be making these two announcements in the coming days,” Hopkinson said. “A superstar, an international. He’s going to focus on our digital growth. We cannot achieve all that ambition on Newcastle’s local market opportunity. We’ve got to go global.” These new hires will be crucial in helping Hopkinson further pump-prime Newcastle’s revenue streams, as he looks to deliver his ambitious “Vision 2030” blueprint.’
Stadium plans
David Hopkinson confirming that stadium plans will be a key part of this week’s discussions with the Newcastle United owners: “We are considering what to do with our stadium, whether that is a significant renovation or a brand new stadium we need more capacity to drive that revenue.”
State of the art new training complex
There has also been strong rumours that we could finally hear what the plans are going to be regarding the much anticipated new state of the art training complex. Widespread reporting that the Newcastle United owners have bought land at Woolsington, up near the Airport, from former club owners Sir John Hall.
David Hopkinson commenting today: “Our [current] training ground is very good, [though] it is not as good as others. If we are going to have world class ambition, then we need world class infrastructure to support that. These are the types of conversations we’re going to have over the next couple of days.”