Newcastle United have been linked with a number of Saudi Pro League midfielders to replace Sandro Tonali.
Newcastle United understands the importance of staying within Financial Fair Play parameters, but they may have discovered a loophole when it comes to loan transfers in January. The Magpies have been linked with Ruben Neves and Gabri Veiga as potential replacements for Sandro Tonali during his ten-month suspension.
Eddie Howe’s side has a midfield void to fill, and recent reports claim the Toon have agreed to a loan deal with PIF-owned Saudi Arabian clubs in January.
The move would likely irritate current Premier League clubs, but if Newcastle structured the deal correctly, there would be no rules broken.
Nonetheless, the Magpies’ head coach admitted that doing so could be prohibited in the future.
Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert, has gone so far as to suggest that the Toon could sign Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Bemzema, and Neymar before his long-term injury without breaking any rules.
The question posed by Maguire was “If the Newcastle owners bought a billion pounds of Newcastle shares and the club invested the billion pound, would the income from the investment count towards FFP?” “Cor this is a corker,” he said on The Price of Football podcast. Under current legislation, I believe they could because, according to club accounts, some of them do have investment income.
“That is included in profit before tax, and profit before tax is the starting point for calculating profitability and sustainability.” Other clubs, I believe, would respond.
“Once again if 14 clubs vote to change the rules, they could say there is an automatic cap on investment income being included but under the present rules I think that’s a nice little one here. But, there would be an instant response from other Premier League owners and remember, there are Premier League meetings which take place on a monthly basis.
“I suspect we could be moving into a very interesting time in January with talk of Newcastle potentially loaning players from the Saudi Pro League to Newcastle for the second half of the season. Newcastle are flying at present, playing good football with thee current squad but Ronaldo, Benzema, if he hadn’t wrecked his knee, Neymar and co, there’s some good players.”
Of course, it remains unlikely the Toon would sign such players, given the scrutiny any deals would come under from fellow Premier League clubs.
Leave a Reply