Craig Hope, writing in the Daily Mail credits Ashley personally with putting up the funds spent so far:
And Simon Bird, writing for Newcastle’s Media Partner The Daily Mirror tells his readers the Ashley approach to investing almost one hundred million pounds in one season
All of this ignores the model in place at Newcastle United. Talk of Ashley pumping in a hundred million pounds in a season has been scoffed at by the owner himself. Remember his September 2008 statement
It’s a point that was reiterated by Derek Llambias when he outlined the need for Newcastle United to be self sustaining in his statement when the club was promoted in May 2010
And again by Llambias’s successor Lee Charnley when he was appointed chief executive in April 2014 and specified that the club would live within it’s means
Rather than a change in policy, the spending this season should be seen as nothing more than a continuation of this policy. The club spends what it earns from TV, matchday and commercial income and nothing more. In six out of eight seasons we have accounts available for under Ashley, the club has spent exactly as much as it was able to under this policy (or a little more until the club climbed out of the championship). Only twice in 8 years has the club fallen significantly short of that. In 2011 when Andy Carroll was sold and in 2014 Yohan Cabaye. The club did not rush to re-spend these two windfalls immediately.
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This led to cash reserves of £34.1m being in the bank come June 2014, while the club already had (and still has) the seventh largest revenue in the league.
Newcastle United are not minnows relying on Mike Ashley to put his hand in his pocket to avoid relegation. They are Premier league heavyweights in comparison to the majority of other clubs and can afford this level of investment year on year, no matter who the owner is.
Rather than Mike Ashley benevolently handing the club a portion of his wealth to avoid relegation, he’s persisting with the same policy of the club wiping it’s own nose.
When the 2015 and 2016 accounts come out we’ll not be shown to have jeopardised financial stability or extended the loans provided by Ashley. Rather we’ll see that we have continued to spend what we can afford.
Rather than current spending being a spree over one, two or three windows as McClaren has suggested, it will be the benchmark going forward and only grow with the next TV deal.
There is no evidence that Mike Ashley has made any further investment in Newcastle United since the club was in the championship back in 2010. In fact, we know for a fact that he has taken money out since then.
Ashley took £11m OUT of the club to repay a fraction of his earlier loans. This was stated in the accounts from 2012 when the amount owed to Ashley was reduced from £140 to £129m
Wetting his beak with some of that Carroll money no doubt.
For me it’s important that the distinction is made between how the club continues to be funded.
Supporters should not be given the impression that the club needs or benefits from Ashley’s ongoing financial support to maintain Premier League status and potential investors should not be dissuaded from looking at the club because it’s perceived as a drain on an owner’s resources.
http://www.themag.co.uk/2016/01/essential-reading-self-sufficiency-at-newcastle-united-mike-ashley/#sthash.fK86FPct.dpuf
