Newcastle United co-owner Amanda Staveley has explained why the wealthy Saudi Arabian owners of the club opted against a move to purchase Chelsea.
The investment group, led by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), completed the £300million takeover of the Magpies in October 2021 to end Mike Ashley's 14-year ownership of the club.
Upon the completion of the takeover, Staveley expressed the long-term ambition to win the club their first-ever Premier League title. "Newcastle United deserves to be top of the Premier League. We want to get there," she said in 2021.
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"It will take time, but we will get there. We're proud to be part of the Premier League. It's an incredibly competitive league, which we love. Premier League football is the best in the world, and Newcastle United is the best team in the world."
Newcastle recently fell to a Carabao Cup final heartbreak at the hands of Manchester United. The Wembley defeat followed speculation in recent weeks that the Public Investment Fund could consider selling Newcastle to fund a bid for their opponents, with the Glazer family exploring options to sell either part of or the whole club.
However, the 49-year-old has rubbished these claims by pointing out the reason as to why the fund didn't purchase Chelsea or one of the league's bigger clubs. Speaking at the Financial Times' Business of Football Summit, she said: "We didn't go for the wonderful Tottenham, Chelsea or Liverpool because why spend billions?"
And when asked about the speculation about whether the owners would part ways with Newcastle to fund a move for another club, Staveley said: "I don’t think so."
One topic that was discussed by Staveley was the option to grow Newcastle with a potential multi-club ownership - something Todd Boehly has gone on record to discuss in past. Speaking in September at a SALT conference, the Chelsea owner said: "We’ve talked about having a multi-club model.
"I would love to continue to build out the footprint. There are different countries where there are advantages to having a club. Red Bull does a good job. Manchester City has a big network of clubs.
"Our goal is to ensure pathways for our young stars to get on to the Chelsea pitch while getting them real game time. To do that is through another club in a really competitive league in Europe."
Staveley said about the idea: "Obviously if we’re looking at everything in terms of how we grow Newcastle, how we grow our brand, how we grow our club.
"An opportunity to buy players affordably well, early in the cycle, is critical to our growth. We’re very focused on our academy and young players at the moment.
"Obviously we’ve looked at multi-club. Whenever you look at multi-club. you’ve got to make sure you’ve got the right fit. It’s complicated and we’re also looking at another structure that would allow us to maybe both. Maybe something a little bit different that gives us more opportunity to work with a lot more clubs (without buying stakes in them). That’s at a quite early stage, so we’re just looking.
"I think anybody who is looking to buy any club is going to be looking at that multi-club model."
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