Alan Shearer calls Newcastle United decision ‘Madness’ | OneFootball

Alan Shearer was on Match of The Day this weekend.

The Newcastle United and England legend talking about his old club.

Not just about what happened when they were on the pitch in West London winning 4-2.

Alan Shearer also keen to talk about what Newcastle United were up to AFTER they had won at Brentford.

Eddie Howe and his Newcastle United squad off to Australia on Sunday night, with NUFC set to play friendlies against Tottenham on Wednesday and an A-League All Star team on Friday, both games in Melbourne.

“Can you imagine if you are a player who is playing in either the Copa America or Euro 2024, having to do that?

“Madness.

“Crazy.

“I wouldn’t be happy at all.

“It is crazy for Newcastle to go and play Spurs there on Wednesday night and then another game.”

Kieran Trippier had been quizzed about the trip ahead of the Brentford match:

“It is not ideal because it is a tournament year.

“I understand why the club are doing it.

I have done it at Tottenham and Madrid, but from my own experience of it, in a tournament year it is not ideal.”

I don’t think there is anything wrong with what Alan Shearer is saying about the trip to Australia, nor Kieran Trippier.

However, it is just yet another topic where there are so many different points of view and conflicting interests.

For Tottenham and Newcastle United as football clubs, they clearly see it as something both immediately beneficial financially, AS WELL as longer-term, in terms of increasing their profile and support down in Australia, leading to more money in the future.

I also have that saying coming to mind of ‘Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean mean they aren’t after you.’

What I have noticed with the media, is that there are many more reports on this trip saying how wrong it is that Newcastle United are going to Australia, with Tottenham as an afterthought, as opposed to the other way around. I know that with Alan Shearer in this instance, that means it will be more of a Newcastle story. However, I have found it also repeatedly in the vast majority of other reports on the trip, when it is being written from a supposedly neutral perspective, that NUFC are the name in lights getting the vast majority of the outrage.

This is especially so when it comes to the whole subject of a Premier League club flying to the other side of the world to play a friendly football match or two. You would think this is some kind of unprecedented idea, playing friendlies in far away places just to increase finances and profile. I would say Newcastle United have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to the usual suspects and how many times they have gone on long haul flights for friendlies to far flung places, purely for money and power.

The thing is as well, when this Newcastle United trip to Australia was first announced, much of the outrage centred around the damage to the environment that the non-essential round trips would cause. I had honestly never ever read a single article previously about such trips for friendlies by other major clubs, never mind the multitude that greeted this one.

What exactly is and isn’t essential? This is essentially a business trip from a club perspective to generate money long and short-term, with tens of thousands of football fans, including many Newcastle ones, getting the rare chance to see NUFC and Tottenham play in the flesh.

All the facts and figures that were getting quoted about how much damage these NUFC return flights would do to the environment… well, if it really does that much damage and shouldn’t be happening, why do all these other thousands of flights that happen every single day of the year go ahead without any concern? Nobody HAS to go on holiday abroad, most business trips abroad now are surely not essential, when you have all the forms of technology that can make it almost seem like you are there in person ‘meeting’ whoever remotely.

Pretty much all of you have seen the footage of the likes of Heathrow Airport, where they show so many planes stacked up in the sky waiting to land, at a rate of something like every 30 seconds just at that one airport!

Newcastle United are like a pantomime villain now, that is our role in whatever scenario is played out in any setting.

If anybody was remotely serious about reducing the harm to the environment via planes, they would be so heavily taxed it would make make very expensive to make any flights. Yet the opposite is the case, in so many cases, especially if you live down south near the likes of Heathrow, Stansted and so on, you can so often fly off to so many distant destinations at a cheaper price than getting a train any distance with our own island.

The people who own Newcastle United (and Tottenham), their priority is Newcastle United. As Kieran Trippier says, it isn’t ideal for those players who will be hoping to be involved with their countries this summer, but it is what it is. So many of us have had it in our normal jobs, you get sent away with work to some hellhole like Coventry, Slough, or wherever, you just have to get on with it.

If anybody is serious about reducing the number of pointless flights football players take, then they should start with not having a single international friendly ever in the future. There is absolutely no need and nobody would miss them.