Maguire: This is level of spending Newcastle fans can expect if DaGrosa buys out Ashley
Don’t expect Newcastle United to compete with the spending of Manchester City and Chelsea if Joseph DaGrosa buys the club from the “toxic” Mike Ashley.
That is according to finance expert and new Football Insider columnist Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively after The Athletic revealed that Newcastle remains one of the Premier League clubs in which DaGrosa is interested in investing.
DaGrosa is the former owner of Ligue 1 side Bordeaux and his investment company Kapital Football Group have shown concrete interest in buying Newcastle in the past.
Quoted by Sky Sports, the American billionaire investor said in 2019: “I can certainly confirm interest. I will confirm that I’ve had conversations with Mike Ashley’s top representative.”
Amid the renewed interest, Maguire gave an indication of what the St. James’ Park faithful could expect should a DaGrosa takeover come to pass…
He told Football Insider correspondent Adam Williams: “I think they’ll be relatively cautious in terms of what they spend.
“They have the main benefit of not being Mike Ashley.
“Ashley is toxic for the brand. So there would be a lot of goodwill. My view is that they’d be able to generate more money in terms of merchandise sales and some commercial deals with local firms and things of that nature. That could then be put into the pot.
“I’m not anticipating an Abramovich or Mansour blank chequebook style, or even what we’ve seen at Everton with Farhad Moshiri. I think the potential investment would be moderate.”
DaGrosa has also this week stated his interest in purchasing an 80% share in Southampton from current majority stakeholder Gao Jisheng.
According to the same report in The Athletic, the 58-year-old has asked Jisheng to lower his £160million asking.
In other news, fractious relations between Watford and Newcastle caused a transfer between the two clubs to collapse at the eleventh hour.