Newcastle facing 'bigger issues' after surprisePIF twist - Stefan Borson
Newcastle United’s owners scaling back their international investments will have no impact on the club moving forward.
That is the view of finance expert Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider the north-east giants have "bigger issues" when it comes to regulations within the sport rather than investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).
PIF bought Newcastle alongside the Reuben Brothers and PCP Capital Partners in a £305million deal in October 2021.
But speaking at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh on 29 October, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is Newcastle’s chairman and the governor of PIF, revealed (via The Financial Times) the sovereign wealth fund plans to scale back its international investments.
He said PIF, which has about £720billion worth of assets, intended to cut the proportion of funds invested overseas from 30 per cent down to between 18 and 20 per cent.
Newcastle to be unaffected by PIF investment plans
But Borson doesn’t expect it to affect Newcastle’s progress moving forward.
He told Football Insider: “I suspect it won’t have any impact at all.
“At the end of the day, the numbers that you are talking about in terms of Premier League football are miniscule compared to the investments that are being made by PIF.
“Newcastle’s limitations as we know are largely driven by the financial regulations in the sport.
“That’s not just the Premier League PSR stuff and the new regime that’s coming in, but also UEFA.
“I don’t think it will have any impact at all.
“I think they have got bigger issues Newcastle with regulation and £100million here or there that we are talking about from PIF to maybe fund the sponsorship of the training ground or some other infrastructure around the stadium in the grand scheme of Saudi money is neither here nor there.
“I would say overall it will have no impact.”
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