https://theathletic.com/1963915/2020/07/30/amanda-staveley-the-premier-league-impossible-ridiculous-newcastle-united-interview/?source=user_shared_articleIt hasnât sunk in, not quite, and there are moments when she is weeping and there are moments when she is pulsing with energy and anger. There are moments when she accepts this unhappy ending and there are moments when she is less sure about what it all entails and what might happen next. âI donât know,â she says. âI donât want to give up.â And then she asks: âWhat would you do?â
Thirty months after Amanda Staveleyâs first attempt to buy Newcastle United hit the buffers, here we are again: this clenched fist to the stomach. But this is worse. It hurts more. There is a financial hit for the businesswoman and her family, but what really aches is how close they came. How a restless club famous for its lack of success, for its truncated ambition and its mighty, yearning support, almost touched the big-time.
âIâm absolutely devastated,â she says. âIâm so upset, I donât know how to express it. Iâm heartbroken. I can barely speak. I believe we werenât just the right partners for Newcastle, we were the only partners.â
A brief recap: in 2017-18, Staveleyâs PCP Capital Partners submitted three bids to purchase Newcastle from Mike Ashley, the retail billionaire. Discussions broke down in acrimony, but Staveley did not go away. For the last year and more, she has been building a consortium, 10 per cent financed by her, 10 per cent by the Reuben family and 80 per cent by Saudi Arabiaâs Public Investment Fund (PIF).
It is the last bit that has proved so contentious, with the Premier League sifting through their Ownersâ and Directorsâ Test for 16 long and frustrating weeks. You might have thought that the hard work had been done. Over his 13 years at St Jamesâ Park, Ashley has been known as a difficult owner and a difficult seller, but a ÂŁ300 million deal was agreed and signed, a ÂŁ17 million deposit was paid (and is now lost), and all that was left was regulatory approval.
First came the protests about Saudi and human rights. Then came the disputes about television piracy, the geopolitics. After months of mixed signals â the consortium were given âprivate assurancesâ on at least two occasions that the Premier League would wave the deal through, sources insist â there were then further demands about Newcastleâs proposed ownership structure. It was too much. Led by PIF, the group pulled out.
âThe Premier League wanted the country, Saudi, to become a director of the football club,â Staveley says. âThatâs what this is about. They were effectively saying âPIF wouldnât be the ultimate beneficial owner, we believe itâs actually the government, therefore we want the country to become a directorâ, which puts them in an impossible situation. They feel they werenât wanted by the Premier League.
âI hope the fans realise whatâs happened, that this is a lot more complicated than it might seem. I want them to understand the whole thing about the directorship, that it would be impossible for a state to become a director. The Premier League made it so hard. It would be unprecedented. No country has ever become a director of a club. Itâs ridiculous.
âThey were saying âyou know what, we wonât reject you but we wonât approve you either, so weâll just sit here for month after monthâ. They could have told us all this before we exchanged. Itâs up to the fans now. Because if the fans want this back on then theyâre going to have to go to the Premier League and say this isnât fair.â The Premier League declined to comment on the specifics of the failed takeover attempt.
The irony is that Newcastle supporters have been the least relevant, least consulted group of all. They have waited and fretted, been told what they should think and feel by pundits, journalists, politicians and pressure groups, but they have never had a say, beyond making their own feelings clear. And, in that sense, they were definitive: 96.7 per cent of the Newcastle United Supporters Trustâs 10,000-plus members answered positively when asked if they wished the takeover to go ahead.
It is not hard to understand why, for all that many will have felt conflicted about the moral and ethical questions being flung at them. Newcastle could be so much more; more than they are, more than the 13th best team in the Premier League, and here were owners with the resources to take them there. Here was their opportunity. And finally, after all those doubts, Ashley wanted out, too.
âWe had a plan for ÂŁ250 million of investment in the club over the first few years, as much as we could put in,â Staveley says. âAnd on top of that, we had massive plans to invest in the city, in housing, everything. We talked with the council. Newcastle are the last great untapped club. The last great club with so much potential to grow and improve and with a fanbase who were already there and who wanted it so much.â
It was about emotion, too. âI fell in love with Newcastle,â she says. âI fell in love with the passion, the fans. It was just this incredible club. And I knew that with investment and nurturing it could become even better. It needed TLC. It needed a patient owner. It desperately needs investment. That day we first walked into St Jamesâ ⊠it felt like we had come home. We knew what they needed. We wanted it, too. And I know we could have done it.â
âThat dayâ came at home to Liverpool in October 2017, below. Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, her husband, were invited to watch Newcastleâs 1-1 draw by friends and associates. Word had got out; they were spotted and serenaded. She had been involved in Sheikh Mansourâs purchase of Manchester City and an unsuccessful bid to buy Liverpool. She was looking for a club and Newcastle had it all.
âThat day we first walked in, it was a dark, grey evening against Liverpool,â Ghodoussi tells The Athletic. âYou walked in, up the stairs, through the directorsâ area and out into the stadium and you just felt this tremendous energy. It was incredible. As a Londoner, Iâd go to Chelsea or Tottenham Hotspur games and Iâd never experienced anything like it. Amanda and I just looked at each other and said, âthis is it. This is the club we should be buying.â
Their first go at it fell through in January 2018 when Ashley pulled the plug. Sources close to Ashley briefed Sky Sports News that negotiations had been âexhausting, frustrating and a complete waste of timeâ. Staveley was distraught, telling The Times, âThe suggestion that we were either wasting time or not serious is absurd. Itâs hurtful. Hugely hurtful.â She was âvery much still interested in buying Newcastle,â she said.
Ashley has a vivid history of baffling decisions in his tenure at Newcastle, but on this occasion, no blame is attached. When the original deadline for the completion of this deal expired in late June â nobody had considered that the Premier League might take so long to reach a verdict â he manoeuvred for more money, but Staveley does not resent that.
âPlease donât think there was any argument between Mike and I because there wasnât,â she says. âAll this crap about Mike and I not getting on ⊠We get on very well. Thereâs no issue with Mike. None at all. We had a deal agreed. Yes, there was a bit more money on the table, but we agreed it.â
âWhen things went public the first time, it became hard at various points, but ultimately we got beyond that,â Ghodoussi says. âWe agreed a deal with him. And yes, he played around with numbers, but we were happy to pay what we needed to pay. The reason the deal failed is because of the Premier League not because of Mike. Thatâs really important.â
âMike is as disappointed as we are,â Staveley says. âHeâs devastated, too.â
What about the reports that other potential buyers are already lining up? That Henry Mauriss, the American chief executive of ClearTV Media, is waiting in the wings with ÂŁ350 million? âThere arenât other bids. Itâs rubbish,â Staveley says.
And what about Newcastleâs peers and rivals? âWe know that other clubs briefed heavily against it. Because they were jealous.â
This was Staveleyâs baby; she would have run the club on the consortiumâs behalf, joined on the prospective board by Ghodoussi, Jamie Reuben and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF. In spite of all the noise and flak and turmoil, they are adamant that their approach was sound.
âWhen we first tried to buy Newcastle, we tried to bring in a Chinese partner, but we realised that itâs not just about buying a club, itâs about being able to invest in that club, itâs about being able to invest in the community, the academy and the infrastructure,â Ghodoussi says. âThat takes a lot. You need a strong partner to be able to do that. And the reason we went out and approached PIF â it wasnât PIF wanting to buy Newcastle â and put a deal in front of them was because they saw and understood and believed in our vision.
âIt wasnât about sports-washing. If they wanted to do do that, they could have gone out and bought Manchester United for ÂŁ3 billion and got 500 million supporters overnight. It was a passion from Yasir (Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF), who is an avid sportsman. It fitted into Saudi Vision 2030, where they are diversifying into new investment, building relationships with communities.
âThey genuinely felt a kinship to Newcastle. We presented it in a way where they genuinely believed in it and saw it as a long-term project to develop the club, to invest in the community and the academy â that was so important.
âAmanda and I will get up and dust ourselves down. Weâve lived and breathed this for three years. Weâve suffered a loss financially, as well, but what is heartbreaking and really upsetting â and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, as does Amanda â is what this will mean for the fans. For some of them, this is their life. They go to work, they come home and the one silver lining is watching Newcastle at St Jamesâ. Growing up, itâs the passion they put into the club.â
And now, once again, supporters have invested hope. And now, once again, hope has been snatched from their grasp.
Does Staveley have any left? For a little while, she breaks off. âIâm crying, Iâm sorry,â she says. She knew what she wanted to say if and when the takeover had been passed. A mission statement was prepared and practised. She would have talked about ambition and drive, about getting to the Champions League, about communicating with fans, embracing club legends, funding the womenâs team, reaching out to local businesses and institutions.
Instead, it is this.
âIâm trying very hard to understand,â she says. âToday is probably not the right day ⊠I need to figure out if there is any route through this.â
âEven now, if the Premier League came to us and said âwe will approve youâ we would do this deal tomorrow, all three parties of the consortium,â Ghodoussi says.
âMike has agreed, weâve agreed, the Reubens, PIF,â says Staveley. âThe only reason the deal wonât get done is because the Premier League wonât pass it. Everybody is just so, so sad.â
Is there a chance, however slim?
âI donât know,â she says. âI just donât know. I donât want to give up, but I canât do it on my own. Iâve tried. Iâve tried and Iâve tried and Iâve tried. You need investment. You canât just buy a club with no investment behind you. You need ÂŁ600-700 million minimum, to do a deal like this. That was all in place.â
She breaks off again. âI canât believe it,â she says.