The Newcastle United owners recently met with David Hopkinson, the club’s most senior employee as NUFC Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
A series of meetings held at Matfen Hall ahead of the 3-1 win over Brighton a week and a half ago.
The Newcastle United owners meeting David Hopkinson to discuss the current situation at the club and how to progress things as we move on.
Now The Athletic have revealed that Hopkinson has been given far greater power to run the club on behalf of the Newcastle United owners.
The Newcastle United owners showing belief in the club CEO that they appointed eight months ago, The Athletic report stating: “PIF have installed Hopkinson, Wilson and the executive team to run Newcastle on a day-to-day basis, with the CEO having secured greater operational decision-making powers recently so that fewer calls have to be sent to ownership for ratification (though big-money and big-ticket infrastructure items still do).”
Things reached an all-time low (during the reign of these Newcastle United owners) in terms of chaos inside the club, when across the whole of last summer there was no Sporting Director or CEO working at the club.
With the Saudi Arabia PIF running the club with none of their own people physically in place day to day, week to week, month to month, it is not difficult to see how summer 2025 ended up such a disaster.
The Newcastle United owners failing miserably to deal with the Alexander Isak situation, refusing to sell him all summer, only to then do a complete u-turn on deadline day when they sold him to Liverpool.
The club far too slow and lacking the necessary dynamism and positive swift decision making needed to land Eddie Howe’s top targets. It ended up as a shambolic and wasted summer in terms of the summer 2025 transfer window and the preparations for the 2025/26 season overall.
The Athletic commenting: “The accusations of borderline ‘absenteeism’ levelled at PIF (Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Newcastle’s 85 per cent owners) will only continue while they do not have a visible presence on the ground on Tyneside.”
The wasted summer was then followed in September 2025 by the eventual appointment of David Hopkinson, with Ross Wilson coming in as Sporting Director a month later in October 2025.
The report from The Athletic saying that there is now regular contact with Saudi Arabia PIF, even if only from afar: “Hopkinson speaks to ownership on an almost daily, if not a daily, basis, while Ross Wilson, the sporting director, is also in regular contact with PIF officials. Much of their communication tends to be over the phone or via video calls — with PIF involvement in many key online conference meetings, especially those which require significant financial commitment.”
The report naming the man who is currently the main point of contact for David Hopkinson and other senior staff.
The Athletic revealing: “The most prominent point of contact for many senior staff is Jacobo Solis, PIF’s head of Europe direct investments. The Spaniard, who is a former lawyer and investment banker, has been heavily involved since the takeover of October 2021, and was formerly appointed to Newcastle’s board in January 2025. It is Solis who is often involved in internal transfer discussions and who acts as a direct point of contact between the majority owners and the club’s hierarchy.”
Whilst it is welcome news to hear that David Hopkinson and his senior management team have been given greater powers, more freedom to push the club forward, I think it still all feels like there needs to be a far more hands on approach from the majority Newcastle United owners, with their own people on the ground working alongside the club’s CEO and other senior staff. That is if indeed there is a real desire from the owners to be “Number One” club in the world and be “Competing for everything by 2030”, as Yasir Al-Rumayyan and David Hopkinson have respectively claimed is the case.