{"id":505454,"date":"2026-03-31T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/505454\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:10:11","slug":"newcastle-uniteds-owners-sold-st-james-park-to-themselves-accounts-show-club-no-longer-officially-owns-its-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/505454\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle United\u2019s owners sold St James\u2019 Park to themselves \u2013 accounts show club no longer officially owns its home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newcastle United sold both their St James\u2019 Park home and adjacent land to another company owned by the club\u2019s shareholders last season, enabling them to book their first profit since coming under the majority ownership of Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) in October 2021.<\/p>\n

The intragroup asset sales generated paper proceeds of \u00a3176.2million ($232.3m) and an accounting profit of \u00a3133.1m, resulting in a pre-tax profit of \u00a334.7m for Newcastle in 2024-25. Without the sales, the club would have posted a record \u00a398.4m loss.<\/p>\n

PZ Newco Holdings Limited (PZNH) was incorporated in the UK on June 5, 2025 and is, like Newcastle United, wholly-owned by PZ Newco Limited, the UK-registered investment vehicle majority-owned by PIF. On June 27, three days before the club\u2019s accounting year end, PZNH purchased \u2018leasehold improvements at St James\u2019 Park\u2019 for \u00a3172.1m, generating \u00a3129m profit in Newcastle\u2019s books. That comprises the stadium structure; the land St James\u2019 Park sits on is managed by the Freemen of Newcastle, and is not owned by the club.<\/p>\n

On the same date, PZNH purchased Newcastle United Football Club Projects Limited (\u2018Projects\u2019), a club subsidiary, for \u00a34.1m. Projects was set up in late 2022, and in 2023 acquired a long leasehold interest in land at Strawberry Place<\/a>, south of St James\u2019 Park\u2019s Gallowgate End, for \u00a312.5m. The land had been sold by the club in 2019 under the ownership of Mike Ashley, for \u00a39m. Projects later signed an underlease with Newcastle United Promotions Limited (\u2018Promotions\u2019), another entity in the club group. Promotions operates the STACK fan park, which opened on the site in August 2024.<\/p>\n

Promotions remains under the club\u2019s sphere, so income generated from the fan park can still be recorded in Newcastle\u2019s financial submissions to football\u2019s governing bodies. But the upshot of those two transactions carried out last June is the club no longer officially owns its home; it is now under the control of a business controlled by the club\u2019s owners.<\/p>\n

In a briefing with journalists before the release of the club\u2019s latest accounts, Newcastle\u2019s chief financial officer Simon Capper said the motivation behind the transactions was to \u201creorganise our property assets and get them into the correct legal boxes to allow us to go forward with our potential development, either at St James\u2019 Park or for a new stadium, and to facilitate that with financing and other similar items\u201d.<\/p>\n

Newcastle\u2019s home ground has been subject to much speculation<\/a> since the takeover five years ago, even as a decision on what to do \u2014 expand or move \u2014 remains unmade. According to Capper, shifting St James\u2019 Park and the nearby land into a separate company is a further step toward an eventual decision, and the club said compliance with Premier League profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) was not a primary motivation. Capper did, though, admit the intragroup sales \u201ccreate a very significant accounting profit\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Athletic had previously estimated<\/a> Newcastle could lose up to \u00a383m in 2024-25 without breaching PSR, a loss we believed they would approach but fall just on the right side of. Without the two asset sales, last season\u2019s loss would have been \u00a315m over our estimated limit. While projections are just that, and Newcastle certainly didn\u2019t need \u00a3133m in accounting profit to avoid a breach, the figures suggest some benefit from the transactions was required to remain compliant. When asked by The Athletic if this was the case, Newcastle declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Newcastle battled PSR troubles in June 2024, frantically selling Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson to plug a more than \u00a350m gap in their calculation<\/a>. The future of the club\u2019s home was a live topic then too, and undertaking these internal asset sales would have removed the need to sell players before an accounting deadline.<\/p>\n

Such deals aren\u2019t as simple as they may seem \u2014 Premier League rules dictate such transactions must be carried out at \u2018fair market value\u2019, so it isn\u2019t like clubs can pluck a figure out of the air at random to suit a need \u2014 but the profit banked on selling St James\u2019 Park was around double what the Minteh and Anderson sales generated. In any case, it was not a tactic Newcastle employed two years ago.<\/p>\n

The intragroup sales carried out on Tyneside last June are comparable to those seen at other Premier League clubs recently, most notably Chelsea. There, in 2022-23, two hotels and a car park were sold to a fellow group entity. A year later, Chelsea sold their women\u2019s team internally for \u00a3200m. Newcastle haven\u2019t done the latter but in shifting assets within their wider group structure, they have created significant paper value.<\/p>\n

The sales did not translate to an immediate cash injection; as at the end of June, Newcastle were owed the full proceeds by PZNH, though the club receives regular shareholder funding anyway.<\/p>\n

While the transactions assisted Newcastle\u2019s domestic PSR position last season, their overall impact from a regulatory perspective is limited. The Premier League will stop assessing clubs on their rolling three-year losses after the current season, shifting to a squad-cost rule (SCR) which won\u2019t take into account fixed asset sales. Newcastle\u2019s 2025-26 compliance already looked assured as a result of the British record sale of Alexander Isak in September.<\/p>\n

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\n Newcastle\u2019s compliance with 2025-26 Premier League financial regulations looked assured by the sale of Alexander Isak (George Wood\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Abroad, UEFA employs SCR too and, while clubs are still assessed on three-year losses, the European governing body\u2019s rules exclude such asset sales from that. As a result, Newcastle\u2019s most recent submission to UEFA will include pre-tax losses of around that \u00a398m figure.<\/p>\n

The Athletic estimated earlier this season<\/a> that Newcastle would likely breach each of UEFA\u2019s two main financial rules, something these latest financials do little to counter. In fact, they confirm the club is \u2018currently in discussion with UEFA\u2019 with respect to compliance in the accounting period to the end of June 2025.<\/p>\n

UEFA\u2019s football earnings rule limits clubs to three-year losses of \u20ac60m (\u00a352m, $68.8m), around half the Premier League limit. Newcastle\u2019s rolling three-year loss, once the stadium and subsidiary sale are excluded, was \u00a3181.2m, so a breach looks highly likely, even once expenditure on infrastructure and the like is deducted. Both Chelsea, whose asset sales were likewise excluded from the calculation, and Aston Villa are currently in Settlement Agreements with UEFA, which limit future losses, after breaching the rule in 2023-24.<\/p>\n

Each of those clubs also exceeded the 70 per cent squad-cost limit in 2024 and, while it is harder to discern, Newcastle\u2019s position there looks precarious too. The club\u2019s wages-to-revenue metric rose from 68 to 73 per cent in 2024-25, though SCR is assessed over a calendar year. Newcastle\u2019s 2025 position is enhanced by playing in the Champions League this season, but if they have breached SCR for 2025, a fine may await.<\/p>\n

The one-off sales of St James\u2019 Park and nearby land were employed in a year in which Newcastle\u2019s revenue hit record heights, even as they found themselves out of European competition. Last season, the club booked \u00a3335.3m turnover, a \u00a315m improvement on 2023-24, when Newcastle played in the Champions League.<\/p>\n

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A return to that competition this season should ensure another revenue record is broken. The Athletic projects Newcastle earned around \u00a356m from their run to this season\u2019s round-of-16 stage. It\u2019s therefore likely they will top \u00a3400m in annual income for the first time in 2025-26, becoming the first English club outside of the Premier League\u2019s \u2018Big Six\u2019 to do so.<\/p>\n

Revenue increased last season principally on the back of commercial income growth, which now tops \u00a3100m. Again, only the \u2018Big Six\u2019 have previously broached that territory.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Newcastle\u2019s commercial revenues leapt \u00a336.6m (44 per cent), principally due to a new kit and merchandising deal with Adidas. According to a recent UEFA report, the club\u2019s kit deal generated roughly \u00a334m last season, around triple the amount earned previously with Castore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Increased commercial revenues had previously been driven by deals done with fellow PIF-owned entities \u2014 the front-of-shirt sponsorship deal with Sela, for example \u2014 but growth there slowed last year. Newcastle\u2019s commercial income from related parties increased from 2023-24, though only by \u00a35.4m (to \u00a334.4m). The remaining \u00a331.2m increase came from third parties, most of it from Adidas but also from, for example, that STACK fan park which opened at the beginning of last season.<\/p>\n

Matchday income edged up slightly too, even without European football. Newcastle\u2019s ultimately successful run to the Carabao Cup final, combined with two home FA Cup ties, meant they played 25 home games last season, two more than a year earlier. They\u2019ll play a total of 31 this season, six in the Champions League, so takings are likely to hit further heights. Gate receipts have doubled under the new ownership.<\/p>\n

Matchday and commercial revenues offset a \u00a322.7m drop in TV money, driven by that lack of Champions League football. Finishing two spots higher in the Premier League, and having two extra games selected for live broadcast, improved Newcastle\u2019s domestic prize money by \u00a35.5m, even as overall distributions to clubs declined slightly. That Carabao Cup win ended a long wait for silverware but offered little in prize money, so made little dent in the broadcast income figure.<\/p>\n

Despite a fourth straight year of record revenues, Newcastle\u2019s operating loss also hit a club record \u00a3109.4m, a \u00a340.8m (59 per cent) worsening on 2023-24. Cost increases significantly outstripped revenue improvements, even as the club spent minimally on new players.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wages increased 11 per cent to \u00a3243.5m, though that still left Newcastle unchanged as the eighth-highest payer in England. In that context, finishing fifth represented an overachievement. Newcastle have now outperformed their wage bill in each of Eddie Howe\u2019s three full seasons as the club\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, wages as a percentage of revenue increased, because salary costs grew faster than income. This season\u2019s return to the Champions League should help matters, even if another wage bill rise is likely. In a quirk of timing, qualifying for the competition last season probably worsened that metric; bonuses are recorded when the criteria for being paid is met, which generally means the season in which qualification is achieved.<\/p>\n

Getting that proportion down will be of paramount importance for SCR compliance, albeit the club\u2019s whole wage bill is not included. Reflecting improved commercial performance last season was another uptick in off-field staffing. At 305, administrative staff numbers are more than double the number seen at the end of the Ashley era.<\/p>\n

Transfer fees are included in SCR calculations, or rather amortisation costs, being the spreading of fees across player contracts. Those rose in 2024-25 but only slightly, to a little shy of \u00a3100m. Newcastle spent just \u00a340.4m on players last season, the first time their season\u2019s expenditure has been below \u00a3150m in the PIF era.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

They soared above that figure again this season, with the accounts disclosing a \u00a3141m net spend even after the nine-figure sale of Isak to Liverpool. Newcastle\u2019s net transfer spend since the takeover now tops \u00a3500m. On a gross basis, close to \u00a3800m has been spent on new players.<\/p>\n

The Isak sale marked a huge shift from past business on Tyneside. The Athletic has previously detailed the expectation that the deal on its own generated more in player profits for Newcastle than their single-season record of \u00a369.8m, achieved in 2023-24. The huge sale will aid regulatory compliance: a third of the profit achieved will remain in the club\u2019s SCR domestic and European calculations for three years or seasons, and it will also stay on Newcastle\u2019s UEFA football earnings calculation, provided they stay in European competition, through 2027-28.<\/p>\n

Even with that big sale last summer, Newcastle have continued to receive hefty funding from their owners. Sizeable transfer spending and investment across the club \u2014 a further \u00a316m went on infrastructure last season, taking the total post-takeover beyond \u00a350m \u2014 has meant a need to draw from shareholder wallets.<\/p>\n

Not all of it comes from PIF.<\/p>\n

Jamie Reuben, through RB Sports & Media Limited, owns a minority holding, which increased to 15 per cent when Amanda Staveley departed the club in July 2024. Staveley, for her part, repaid a \u00a31.5m loan to the club in December of that year. These accounts detail \u2018key management personnel\u2019, of which Staveley was a part, as receiving \u00a310.7m in 2024-25, up from \u00a36.9m a year earlier. The former included \u2018compensation for loss of office\u2019 which, while not explicitly stated, would cover any pay-off Staveley received.<\/p>\n

Across PIF and Reuben, \u00a350m in shares were issued last season, and a further \u00a3156.5m has arrived since the end of last June. \u00a3111.5m, including \u00a35m directly into the women\u2019s team, was injected in September, before another \u00a345m in December.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In the 54 months since the takeover, Newcastle have received \u00a3491.9m in cash into club coffers from the ownership, or roughly \u00a39m per month. That does not include the \u00a3305m spent on buying the club initially, nor \u00a317.5m in separate debt repayments to Ashley on the day the deal went through. In all, Newcastle\u2019s owners have spent over \u00a3800m on the club inside five years.<\/p>\n

Building a new stadium, or even just expanding St James\u2019 Park, would likely see that figure grow significantly, and it is a matter which has been thrust back into the spotlight with the release of these accounts.<\/p>\n

Newcastle obtained an obvious regulatory benefit from the intragroup asset sales, even if that benefit is limited in scope. The explanation given by the club, of reorganising assets into one legal entity, has credence, though progress on the stadium question is required to bolster that.<\/p>\n

That question forms a key part of Newcastle\u2019s long-term future, though the short term is hardly free of uncertainty either. Revenues are growing, and should have doubled from pre-takeover times in 2025-26. The Isak sale became mired in acrimony last summer but from a financial perspective cannot be understated: it is one of the largest player sales in football history.<\/p>\n

Yet while this season should show healthier financials, Newcastle find themselves subject to one of football\u2019s more recently formed cliff-edges. Missing out on the Champions League at the end of this season but getting into another European competition would see next year\u2019s broadcast revenues slump but the club still held to UEFA\u2019s 70 per cent squad-cost limit.<\/p>\n

No European football at all would make them subject to the Premier League\u2019s higher limit of 85 per cent but the aspiration of becoming a regular Champions League club means Newcastle can hardly ignore UEFA\u2019s rules from one season to the next. Indeed, Newcastle\u2019s ambitions led them toward a record underlying loss last season, as they missed out on Europe\u2019s premier competition but costs continued to rise.<\/p>\n

Most promising on the aspirational front is their commercial revenue. Not only do they make nine figures annually, but at 36 per cent they are the only non-\u2018Big Six\u2019 Premier League club to make more than a third of their income from the commercial stream. Growing non-broadcast revenues is key in insuring against the impact of on-field performance dipping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newcastle United sold both their St James\u2019 Park home and adjacent land to another company owned by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,941,50,221,1671,3564,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-505454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-newcastle-united","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-premier-league","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-sports-business","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}