An excellent article in The Times has perfectly summed up the situation that Newcastle United have found themselves in, when trying to succeed in the Premier League.
With a decade of Mike Ashley having left the club on its knees and no building blocks put in place for the future.
Eddie Howe and the current Newcastle United owners facing so many obstacles in their path. Obstacles that in many ways look all but impossible to navigate through or around.
Martin Samuel in The Times pointing to the Elliot Anderson saga as something that perfectly sums up the current playing field.
The Times correspondent declaring: ‘If there is one event that encapsulates the many false steps taken by English football under its present administration, it is the £116million transfer of Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City. That Newcastle United, the club that produced and nurtured Anderson and to which he has a long-standing familial connection, should be cut out of this transaction, that their good work in developing a talent now shining for England should go comparatively unrewarded, and their position substantially weakened, is everything that is wrong with Alison Brittain and Richard Masters’ Premier League.’
Very difficult to disagree with any of that.
Nor this, as Martin Samuel goes on to say: ‘Newcastle were made to sell Anderson to comply with a set of bogus financial limitations. It even helped that he was a homegrown player, who began training with the club at the age of eight. Anderson was born in Whitley Bay. His grandfather, Geoff Allen, played as an outside left for Newcastle in the 1960s. All of these factors should make him a Newcastle player, perhaps for life, if the club were allowed to realise their ambitions and release their potential. Instead, in 2024, under threat of falling foul of protectionist Profitability and Sustainability Rules, they were forced to sell him for £35million because academy products have greater worth on the balance sheet.’
When will Manchester City ever have to face up to the outcome of their Premier League charges?
Martin Samuel making the very valid point: ‘What adds to the sense of outrage is that Manchester City, the club that can afford to pay £116million for Newcastle’s crown jewel — even if the bulk £81million profit actually goes to Nottingham Forest — are the subject of 115 charges related to financial wrongdoing. City deny them all, it must be said, yet even were they guilty of one it would be a bitter irony that they now field a player Newcastle could not afford to keep in order to abide by the regulations. Those bogus, stupid, competitively limiting regulations.’
Newcastle United aren’t alone in terms of suffering due to rules brought in not for fairness but only to thwart ambition and to protect the usual suspects.
Hull City have been forced into player sales in order to not breach PSR, the bonuses their players have earnt, have also taken the club beyond the three-year Championship PSR limits. Unless corrected by selling players, a breach that would see them docked points in the Premier League.
The man from The Times: ‘Who is Hull City’s best player? Who cares, who is their lawyer, given that no sooner had they been promoted through the play-offs, there was talk of a six-point Premier League deduction if they did not jettison players by the end of June? How does that help competition? Hull City were already the hot tip to go straight down, and now they must weaken their squad.’
Martin Samuel finishing off with:‘…losing Anderson to Forest showed how restricted Newcastle actually were by financial rules that increasingly appear to have targeted them specifically…even when they [Newcastle United] unearth a diamond like Anderson, the Premier League ensures they must hand him over too, in order to comply with arbitrary financial rules which his new club may simply have disregarded. All this is under the guise of fairness. What a dismal competition it has become, with these fools in charge.’
It does all feel like a hopeless cause at times, as the likes of Aston Villa and Newcastle United find themselves facing financial barriers that have been put in place to stop them competing long-term against the ‘big six‘.