Newcastle Utd to Possibly Rename St James’ Park

My local team have conspired to make my football supporters life a misery for over two years now. Mike Ashley, a billionaire from the sports retail Industry, bought the club for a relatively cheap £135 million but then had to pay off a debt to the tune of £80 million to the stadiums builders, something he had failed to notice before buying the club. This meant that this costly due diligence mistake sent his entire financial plans for the club into disarray from day one. Things only got worse from that point forward, with bad on pitch results culminating in the clubs relegation from Premiership last season.

The club are currently sitting at the top of the Championship table and look a good bet for promotion straight back to the Premiership. The fans expect promotion and football betting fans can bet on Newcastle at odds on for most of their home and away matches. Newcastle plays Peterborough on Saturday at St James Park and are 1.45 favourites to beat them with bwin.com. But optimism on the pitch is starkly contrasted to the off the field activities.

Whilst the team has been dismantled to rid the club of the high earners like Obafemi Martins, Damien Duff and Michael Owen there still remains a glut of high earning players at the club. Mike Ashley announced this week that he will not be selling the club for the foreseeable future (despite his desperate efforts) and said that he invites offers of around £6 million per season for the naming rights to the stadium. As has much of his decisions regarding the club this has been met with anger from loyal fans. There is currently a petition being tendered online that has over six thousand signatures from fans hoping the naming rights of the stadium are not sold.

Whilst pledging that any revenue generated from a stadium naming rights deal will go straight now permanent Newcastle manager Chris Hughton this has not appeased the many disgruntled fans unhappy at both the appointment of Hughton (most fans wanted Alan Shearer) and the fans who believe St James Park is something which should remain sacred in footballing terms. £6 million per season would not be enough to compete with other higher spending clubs and the quality of player that could be obtained from this “windfall” would not be sufficient to improve the squad.

It looks very likely that players like Alan Smith, Xisco, Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan and Jose Enrique will be moved on as soon as offers are made as they are all on big wages. Mike Ashley has made no secret of his desire to run the club effectively as a business in the mould of Arsenal. What Mr Ashley seems to miss is that Arsenal have an established youth system and a stable manager who instils the trust of the young players hoping for a career in football. They also appear regularly in the champion’s league. Newcastle have not had a stable manager for over ten years and their youth system has produced only two young players in recent years.

Fortunately the football betting odds are focused on the pitch performance rather than the shabby management. Newcastle are full of well paid and at least on paper, quality players who should be more than a match for their opponents in this division, especially at home. Should the bookmakers start taking the management of the club into consideration believing it could cause problems on the pitch then you could get some value from Newcastle’s match betting odds. Mike Ashley certainly wishes he could find value in his seemingly doomed investment of the club.

By Malcolm Clarke