I have noticed some NUFC fans are hoping that Amanda Staveley can come back, buy the club from the current Newcastle United owners and get us making rapid progress once again, on and off the pitch.
The perception being that under the Saudi PIF and Reuben family ownership, things have stalled.
This follows media reports that Amanda Staveley could be set to buy West Ham United.
Which follow on from past headlines claiming Amanda Staveley could be about to buy Tottenham.
The reasoning is of course, if Amanda Staveley could potentially be buying Tottenham or West Ham, why not Newcastle United?
Does this argument hold water, could it be possible?
HISTORY LESSONS
When the ‘consortium’ bought out Mike Ashley in October 2021, the post-takeover showed shareholdings of 80% Saudi Arabia PIF, 10% Reuben family, and 10% Amanda Staveley.
That 10% stake was believed by some fans to have been Amanda Staveley’s gift/reward from the Saudi Arabia PIF and/or the Reuben family for having been the public face and lead, in helping to get the takeover done.
After all, the financial power of the Saudi Arabia PIF speaks for itself, whilst with a fortune of around £25billion the Reuben family is one of the richest families in the UK, if not the richest.
Whilst Amanda Staveley was seemingly making some kind of a living at a far lower level, by playing a part in helping the super-rich come together to do deals. An introducer if you like.
Anyway, the way it was set up when they took over Newcastle United, Saudi Arabia PIF acquired their 80% stake in the club as ‘NCUK Investment Limited’, while the Reuben family’s RB Sports and Media and Amanda Staveley’s Cantervale Holdings took 20% as ‘JV1 Limited’. Back in October 2021, those shares between RB Sports and Media and Cantervale Holdings were equal at a 10% stake in the club each.
In July 2024, after Amanda Staveley left Newcastle United, when various filings from various business entities were made public by Companies House (which is where these companies are obliged by law to do so), a clearer picture appeared to emerge of how it all worked between the Reuben family and Amanda Staveley, when it came to the Newcastle United takeover and their financial relationships with the club.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire commented in July 2024 on the filings at Companies House by the Reuben family (RB Sports and Media) and Amanda Staveley (Cantervale):
‘Cantervale Ltd, the company owned by Amanda Staveley through which she invested in Newcastle, settles five loans from RB Rights and Media Ltd, owned by James Reuben of the Reuben Brothers. Cantervale owed RBRM over £34m per the 2022 accounts. Looks as if RB lent her money to buy into Newcastle United.’
These are the public filings at Companies House that Kieran Maguire was referring to, showing the identity of the people involved and what had happened:
One document:
Second document:
Third document:
Interesting stuff from Kieran Maguire on what appeared to have happened.
With then this document from JV1 Limited appearing to then show where the money came from for Amanda Staveley to repay the Reuben family:
So just to complete the picture…
At that point of July 2024, this was the breakdown of how the Newcastle United owners had paid out a total of £607.9m on their investment in the club so far (as at July 2024), the initial £305m and then another £302.9m when putting in more cash to build/rebuild the business/football club:
7 October 2021 – £305m – This is the amount of money the new Newcastle United owners paid to Mike Ashley.
9 November 2021 – £38.5m – This additional amount of money was invested into the club by the new Newcastle United owners.
24 January 2022 – £40.0m – This additional amount of money was invested into the club by the new Newcastle United owners.
26 October 2022 – £70.4m – This additional amount of money was invested into the club by the Newcastle United owners.
10 February 2023 – £57.0m – This additional amount of money was invested into the club by the Newcastle United owners
22 August 2023 – £60.0m – This additional amount of money was invested into the club by the Newcastle United owners.
28 March 2024 – £37.0m – This additional amount of money was invested into the club by the Newcastle United owners.
The Saudia Arabia PIF paid for 80% of the takeover, which was £244m, then the Reubens and Amanda Staveley the other 20% between them, 10% each (which was £30.5m each).
Any further investment in the club by the owners was supposed to be on the same percentage basis and indeed the Saudi Arabia PIF paid in 80% of each of those six further investments (up to July 2024).
However, whilst the very first of the six further investments on 9 November 2021 was equally shared between Amanda Staveley and the Reubens when it came to the other 20%, the other five weren’t, the Reubens put in all of the other 20% for those most recent five investments (as shown by other documents filed at Companies House).
So Amanda Staveley’s takeover investment was £30.5m, then she put in 10% of the £38.5m the owners put in on 9 November 2021, which was another £3.85m, bringing her total investment in Newcastle United to £34.35m.
Which of course is the figure (over £34m) that Kieran Maguire quoted as Amanda Staveley owing to the Reuben family, as per those 2022 accounts.
None of this changes the fact that Amanda Staveley did an amazing job and played a key role in the Newcastle United takeover happening, then continuing post-takeover when she and husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi were awarded a management contract that meant they were paid to help run the club after the buyout.
However, I think that what became crystal clear (and indeed had been for many of us from the very start), Amanda Staveley was never really on any kind of equal footing in terms of being an owner of Newcastle United, with the Reuben family and the Saudi Arabia PIF.
I think realistically, there appears to have been no long-term intention of Amanda Staveley remaining as a shareholder at Newcastle United. With it always going to end up after a certain amount of time (a three-year plan?) that it would be the Saudi Arabia PIF and Reubens owning the club together, with the Reubens as the sole minority shareholder as they are now with 15% and the Saudis with 85%. With Amanda Staveley paying back the Reuben family who clearly appear to have funded her 10% share of the original ownership.
(It is also worth noting that when it came to helping to run the club on their management contract, in the period of time that led up to just before their departure, that was when the PSR crisis emerged. A £50m+ black hole that needed filling by the end of June 2024 because of the PSR position across the past three seasons (2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24), with over £50m pure profit on player sales needing to be added by 30 June 2024, we saw the forced sales of Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh. A disastrous situation that had been allowed to develop. Eddie Howe then performing miracles when despite that nightmare summer of 2024 when no first team contenders were able to be added, he then managed after Amanda Staveley’s departure (and Anderson and Minteh’s) to both qualify for the Champions League in the 2024/25 season AND also win the club’s first trophy in 56 years.)
Then only a couple of months ago this emerged….
WHAT THE 2024/25 NEWCASTLE UNITED ACCOUNTS REVEALED (In April 2026)
Paid to help run the club, Amanda Staveley officially ceased to be a director on 12 July 2024.
An interesting snippet came to light in the 2024/25 Newcastle United accounts, when they were made public at Companies House.
The Newcastle United owners revealing (see below) in the accounts (for the financial year up to 30 June 2025) that loans totalling £1,481,000 were repaid to the club by Amanda Staveley in December 2024.
However, they also say that a debt of £625,000 from an Amanda Staveley controlled company is still outstanding. That company is Cantervale Limited and in the 2024/25 accounts the Newcastle United owners state that: ‘Whilst the group continues to seek recovery of the amount owed, due to the age of the debt and uncertainty over its recoverability a provision for the full amount has been made at 30 June 2025 (30 June 2025 : £nil).’
Amanda Staveley was the sole director of Cantervale Limited when it was dissolved via voluntary strike-off on 28 April 2026.
‘Newcastle United Limited
Financial statements for the year ending 30 June 2025
Notes to the financial statements
‘The group is owed £625,000 (30 June 2024 : £625,000) from Cantervale Limited, a company controlled by A L Staveley, a director until 12 July 2024. The balance is included in Note 15 within ‘Other debtors’. Whilst the group continues to seek recovery of the amount owed, due to the age of the debt and uncertainty over its recoverability a provision for the full amount has been made at 30 June 2025 (30 June 2025 : £nil)
‘In previous years, loans totalling £1,481,000 were made to A L Staveley, a director until 12 July 2024. This loan was repaid in full to NUFCCL in December 2024.’
WHAT WE CAN CONCLUDE FROM ALL THE ABOVE
I wish Amanda Staveley all the very best.
However, the idea that she is some fantastically rich person, similar to the Reuben family, who can personally fund ownership of a football club, or even any kind of a significant stake in one, takes a huge stretch of the imagination. Certainly of mine anyway.
The relatively low levels (by football club owners’ standards) of sums of money that Amanda Staveley had borrowed from Newcastle United and according to the football club hadn’t paid back entirely according to the notes above in the 2024/25 accounts, tell you very clearly that Amanda Staveley isn’t somebody with vast personal funds of her own. She has also been involved in some very messy court appearances that I won’t recount here but which also don’t suggest great positivity when it comes to her financial position.
None of this is intended to diminish any Newcastle fan’s opinion of Amanda Staveley and her role in delivering us from the clutches of Mike Ashley.
At the same time though…please don’t be thinking that Amanda Staveley is in any kind of a position to swoop in to buy Newcastle United and take the club to great places.