Amanda Staveley has admitted the Saudi Arabia-funded takeover of Newcastle United was a “risk” because of their relegation troubles.
The United directors and deal-maker, says the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia who took an 80pc stake, plus herself and the Reuben family, have gambled because the club could drop to the Championship.
Staveley reckons the safe option would have been to delay the £305m takeover until the end of the January transfer window to see where the club was in the Premier League table.
Instead they took the plunge and Staveley says they have got the right manager to lead them to safety in Eddie Howe - who was chosen after passing a detailed analytical review of his career by data experts.
Newcastle are in 19th position in the league, five points from safety, with Brentford up next, and a nightmare run of games in December.
Staveley said: “As an investor group we were - not brave - but it would have been an easy decision for us not to buy the club just yet, wait until post Christmas, post the January transfer window, see where the club sat in the league and then make the acquisition.
“That would have been the safe investment bet. We didn’t do that. We decided if we didn’t do it now it wasn’t going to happen.
“We had to take that risk. We felt we took a risk because we knew the club was sitting in 19th.
“Eddie took that risk with us, knowing there is always a chance of relegation. He will do the most incredible job.”
Staveley described Howe as “dynamic”, and ready to fix the on-field problems, and today vowed to “build a new academy” for the medium term development of the club.
She even interviewed Howe BEFORE buying the club. He was appointed after Unai Emery turned the job down.
Staveley said: “We are so excited by Eddie joining up with us and heading the first team. He is an incredible coach. We did a very robust managerial search and we were very proud to appoint such an incredible manager.
“We and PIF are a very process driven organisation, and one thing we have learned in football is that things move incredibly quickly.
“Sometimes when we have an eye on the right manager, we met and spoke with Eddie some time ago, and discussed his appointment back when Mike was running the club.
“We have to do a full search of the marketplace and find the perfect fit. Eddie is the perfect fit. We could not have imagined bringing in a better manager.
“He is so dynamic. And one of the things when we do analysis on managers on data and analytics, he scored so highly across all mediums.
He has grown Bournemouth from league two to the Premier League, an incredible achievement. We were impressed he did that on quite limited resources.
“It is very easy to win trophies if you have a lot of money and infrastructure or people. But when you are limited by those factors, his success really shone out. Not just him buty Jason and his team.”
Addressing the relegation problem, Staveley said: “We had to have someone leading the club who was not frightened of relegation. I remember Eddie and I talking about this at the weekend. He is going back to a position he has sat in before.
“It is not one we have sat in.”
And in a final vow, the investor who had a 10pc stake, added: “I want to be able to communicate with fans and say if we do make mistakes, we will quickly own up to them and put them right.”
