Newcastle United and PSR – Rory Smith and Paul Robinson argue what’s fair | OneFootball

The subject of PSR and Newcastle United came up on BBC Radio 5 Live, with Paul Robinson and Rory Smith debating the issue.

Paul Robinson is a former goalkeeper who played for Leeds and England.

Rory Smith is a journalist from Leeds, who now works for The Athletic.

The pair of them were on the Monday Night Club panel this week.

Discussing/arguing about the impact that PSR is having on clubs such as Newcastle United:

Paul Robinson:

“It must be so frustrating for Newcastle fans with these PSR rules.

“They’re the richest club in the world and the story every transfer window is: ‘Oh, they have to sell Alexander Isak or Bruno Guimaraes.’

“They should be allowed to spend what other clubs have spent over the years.

“How are they going to close that gap quickly?

“They’re not – they’re going to have to balance the books.

“The squad that Eddie Howe wants is probably three or four windows away, but they have the money to do that now.”

Rory Smith:

“I’d go the other way on the financial rules.

“I get it’s frustrating for Newcastle, but I’m not convinced football should be decided by which team can attract the biggest country to back it.

“There is also the benefit that, if you’re Arsenal, you probably can’t sign Isak any more as it would put you at risk of breaking the rules.

“That makes Isak more likely to stay at Newcastle and there is a bigger spread of talent throughout the league.”

It is laughable for Rory Smith (I have rarely been impressed when hearing/reading him previously, certainly not leaning towards positivity regarding Newcastle United) to claim that PSR is somehow working in Newcastle United’s favour as well as against them.

Eddie Howe and the Newcastle United owners came into the club when it was in a desperate state on and off the pitch and had to make major investment into the team just to survive, then more essential spending to try and make the team/squad competitive. That spending over just four transfer windows (with next to no inherited saleable players NUFC could sell to help balance that spending) very quickly led to a situation where Newcastle haven’t been able to buy any contenders for the first team these last three windows. Plus, if Newcastle hadn’t had young talent in Minteh and Anderson to sell in June 2024, they WOULD have had to sell an Isak, Gordon or similar just to avoid breaking PSR restrictions.

Smith wants to make out like it is some kind of level playing field, that is Newcastle United and/or others were allowed to spend more cash to try and close the gap on the ‘big six’, that this would be somehow unfair.

Those six have such massive in-built financial advantages now, that generate so much more cash than the rest and allow far higher spending on wages and transfer fees, it is the very opposite of a level playing field as it stands. Just look at the likes of Man U and Chelsea who have had a number of seasons where they are no longer dominant on the pitch, yet it makes such little difference to what they are able to spend.

The likes of Newcastle United, Villa and others have been able to reach a certain point and then hit a glass ceiling, where their ability to keep on growing/progressing on and and off the pitch, becomes all but impossible.

Newcastle United have spent far more these last three or so years on transfer fees than they did previously BUT it was essential, due to the Mike Ashley decade and a half of not spending a penny he wasn’t forced to on or off the pitch.

Even though Newcastle United have spent far more in these last few years, the usual half dozen suspects have all still spent more, far more in some cases, than NUFC since our takeover in October 2021. For those six clubs this is on top of the already massive advantages they had built up already.

The likes of Man City and Chelsea able to spend whatever they wanted to put themselves in their current financial positions, whilst they and Man U, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool also benefiting massively year on year as the whole set-up favoured making the six of them ever richer and more powerful, to create that almost impossible financial gap for other clubs to bridge.

DELOITTE

The latest (2025) Deloitte Football Money League was published last month.

This showed the clubs in world football who generate the most money (not including player trading), the highest revenues.

These are the nine Premier League clubs who were ranked the highest/richest, based on total revenues for last (2023/24) season, their place in the Deloitte list and their total revenue figures listed in millions of euros (then in brackets the 2022/23 total revenues for each of the Premier League clubs):

Second – Man City €838m (€826m)

Fourth – Man U €771m (€746m)

Seventh – Arsenal €717m (€533m)

Eighth – Liverpool €715m (€683m)

Ninth – Tottenham €615m (€632m)

Tenth – Chelsea €546m (€589m)

Fifteenth – Newcastle United €372m (€288m)

Seventeenth – West Ham €322m (€275m)

Eighteenth – Aston Villa €310m (€244m)

As you can see, a yawning gap between the usual six and the rest.

UEFA

UEFA have fully played their part as well. To keep the richest and most powerful well above the rest long-term.

Last (2023/24) season, Newcastle United did better than Manchester United in the Champions League, yet Man U banked around £20m more than NUFC from the UEFA share out. UEFA having previously bowed to the already richest and most powerful, by making a serious proportion of the cash you can earn from participation, based on how you have done (your co-efficient) in Europe the previous five seasons. The better you have done in Europe the previous five years, the more money you get.

Hmmm, I wonder which clubs that favours???

Surely if UEFA wanted to try and create fairer competition, it should be the other way around, clubs who haven’t previously benefited as much from the Champions League riches, given more money to help them compete more regularly and successfully in Europe.

It is laughable but they keep getting away with it.

If Aston Villa exit this season’s Champions League at the same stage as Arsenal and/or Liverpool, they (Villa) would get far less money, due to their records in Europe the five previous seasons. Indeed, Villa could progress further than one or both of Arsenal or Liverpool, yet potentially still get less cash from UEFA!

If say Forest (or Bournemouth, Fulham etc) can hang on and make it into the Champions League next season, they will experience the same,

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire made a great point over thirteen months ago – 13 January 2024:

“If Premier League PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules) limits had risen in line with football inflation since 2013 (here I’m using wages but revenues are similar) clubs could lose up to £218 million over 3 years.

“Non adjustment of limits is similar to fiscal drag when government doesn’t raise tax thresholds.

“The non increase of the PSR limits has hit clubs with new owners since 2013 hardest, such as Newcastle, Everton and Villa.”

Villa proposed a modest increase last year in terms of raising the allowed £105m losses over three years, the usual suspects helped ensure it was voted down.

The thing is as well, whilst the status quo suits the usual half dozen at the top of the financial end of things. It also suits those small clubs who accept they have no chance of ever competing long-term on and off the pitch, by growing their financial power to anything like those half dozen. The way the Premier League divide the cash means that the smallest clubs can still get total revenues that aren’t a million miles away from the likes of say Newcastle and Villa. Certainly a far smaller gap between say Bournemouth/Brentford compared to Newcastle/Villa, than there is between the ‘big six’ and any other club trying to bridge the gap.

The likes of Newcastle and Villa currently need to establish themselves for a lot of years in the top handful to have any chance of closing the financial gap, via league placings and regular Champions League involvement. Especially as this is the only way they can significantly increase commercial revenues which is increasingly playing such a massive role in the financial disparity between the half dozen and the rest.

So for the smallest Premier League clubs, it is actually in their interest to vote with the strongest and richest, to keep ambitious clubs such as Villa and Newcastle, from joining the richest and most powerful, instead keeping them far closer financially, to those at the bottom end.

It’s just business

The idea that it is somehow unfair for owners of football clubs to spend their own money to try and be able to compete, is a strange one.

We are constantly told that football is a business now, so surely, normal business rules should apply, at least to a significant extent.

If somebody starts a new business, or takes over a struggling business, it is then universally accepted that to have any chance of then competing with the long established and most powerful businesses in your sector, at home and overseas, there will have to be substantial investment.

There will have be investment in the infrastructure, the machinery, the stock, the personnel and so on.

In other words, at least in the early years, the owners of such businesses know they will have to be losing money, spending far more than their revenues, in order to hopefully compete longer-term.

As football finance expert Kieran Maguire makes clear, in real terms, taking football inflation into account, the £105m of allowed losses over three years that was decided on 12 years ago, is now the equivalent of more than twice that figure these days.

Conclusions

The current situation with the Premier League and what is allowed, is clearly not working. Unless of course you are one of the richest and most powerful. Or one of those at the other end of things who is desperate to stop any other club joining those half dozen.

Both the Premier League and UEFA need to start putting in measure to encourage more competitiveness, that clubs can over time be allowed to grow and progress financially, as well as on the pitch, so that it isn’t this same stale longer-term ongoing status quo, when it comes to power and money.

This current situation where clubs, especially ambitious ones, are forced/encouraged to sell their best homegrown talent in order to try and bridge the gap to the half dozen, or even just to survive, is an absolute joke.

For me, the first and most obvious step is to allow a sizeable increase in those allowed losses over a three year period, an amount that takes into account the huge football inflation this past decade and more. This should be the very minimum in terms of helping to make it a more level playing field, whether it is Newcastle, Villa, Forest, or whoever.