Liverpool reality check as Newcastle United owners insist Alexander Isak not for sale – Report | OneFootball

The Newcastle United owners have made clear that Alexander Isak is not for sale this summer.

That is what a Friday morning media exclusive has now reported.

The Telegraph reporting that their information is that Newcastle United Chairman and the man in charge of Saudi Arabia PIF’s 85 per cent majority stake in NUFC, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, has personally stepped in to take the lead on the situation.

Luke Edwards of The Telegraph says that it is very rare for the Governor of Saudi PIF to get directly involved in the day to day running of the club, usually happy to take a backseat and leave it to the senior staff at St James’ Park.

However, these exceptional circumstances seeing Yasir Al-Rumayyan step in and PIF continuing to insist the striker is not for sale.

With only three weeks to go until the new season kicks off, this feels like a massive moment for the Newcastle United owners and Eddie Howe.

If Liverpool had acted in a proper manner months ago when the 2024/25 season ended, approached Newcastle United with a credible offer for Alexander Isak, then who knows what would have happened, despite the claims of the striker not for sale.

However, for Liverpool to wait until this very late stage of pre-season AND still not formally approach the club and make a credible offer, instead feeding the media the info that they would be willing to pay £120m for Alexander Isak, a striker who has repeatedly been reported as valued by the Newcastle United owners at £150m+. Well, you can’t imagine this has gone down well at all with Yasir Al-Rumayyan and the United ownership overall.

An excellent article earlier this (Friday) morning by The Athletic’s football finance expert, explained that a £150m+ transfer fee for Alexander Isak, would actually mean a total financial commitment for Liverpool, or any other club, of £250m+ in total, once agent fees, four per cent transfer levy and then serious wages were taken into account.

You can never say never in football, so there is of course a real chance that Liverpool could sign Alexander Isak this summer.

However, for anybody to believe that this will be on anybody else’s terms, other than those of the Newcastle United owners, will be sadly mistaken.

It is easy to make sly moves of feeding the media to try and unsettle a player but for Liverpool (or any other club) to stand any chance of buying Alexander Isak, they must step up and do things properly, which includes a formal offer that meets the full valuation of what the Newcastle United owners might accept.

If that does happen, only then will we find out what Yasir Al-Rumayyan might decide.

However, the idea of a club trying to force the Newcastle United owners into an Alexander Isak sale on the relative cheap, the idea of that actually succeeding is laughable.