
Football executives are a miserable, glass-half-empty bunch — who else would see their club get bought by a billionaire, a sovereign wealth fund or a Wall Street syndicate and say something like this?
“What does having lots of money really mean? It means a change in expectations among your fans, your players, their agents and rival clubs,” explains one, who asked to remain gloomily anonymous.
“Overnight, the value of your players, and anyone you’re looking at (as a potential signing), goes up — purely because you have got more money, not because they’ve got better.”
He is not the first to point out that wealth does not equal happiness.
Noted football finance expert The Notorious B.I.G. probably put it best: “I don’t know what they want from me, it’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see.”
That is the double-edged sword Newcastle United have been handed, and it is one their fans have gratefully grabbed.
But Newcastle are now football’s latest windfall team and — like Chelsea, Manchester City and others before them — they are expected to spend, spend, spend their way to the top. History, however, suggests this is easier said than done.
“Becoming a high-profile owner at a club can be a hugely significant challenge,” says Omar Chaudhuri, chief intelligence officer at Twenty First Group, a consultancy that provides “bespoke B2B sports intelligence” to clubs, leagues and governing bodies.
“Not only are expectations high, they’re often unreasonable — and everyone has a view on how you might achieve them.