Newcastle United has officially become the world’s wealthiest club after the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) purchased the Premier League club from Mike Ashley following a 14-year tenure.
About the Club
Newcastle United is a professional football club headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, that competes in the Premier League, the country’s highest level. Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End were merged to form the club in 1892. The team’s home games are held at St James’ Park in Newcastle’s city center.
Since joining the Football League in 1893, the club has been a member of the Premier League for all but three years of the competition’s history, spending 89 seasons in the top level as of May 2021, and have never slipped below English football’s second tier. Between 1904 and 1910, the club had its most successful phase, winning an FA Cup and three League crowns. Newcastle was demoted from the Premier League in 2009 and again in 2016. Each time, the team was promoted at the first attempt, returning to the Premier League as Championship champions in 2010 and 2017.
The Richest Club
The PIF will fund a major portion of the 300-million-pound buyout fee, given the fund’s 320-billion-euro fortune is nearly 11 times that of Manchester City’s Sheikh Mansour. Newcastle fans, who flocked to the streets to cheer Ashley’s departure, have backed this takeover. Yasir Al-Rumayyan will be the club’s executive president.
The Premier League refused to approve PIF’s purchase of Newcastle United a year ago due to a dispute between Saudi Arabia and beIN Sports, which owns the television rights to the competition in the country after the channel claimed that Saudi Arabia was behind a pirate broadcast that had been illegally transmitting games for years.
The Premier League, on the other hand, acquired legally enforceable assurances that Saudi Arabia would not be involved in the club’s management and so approved the takeover. Newcastle is currently in second place in the league table, with only three points from their first seven games.
