Newcastle’s club value has rocketed since Saudi takeover in 2021 - Report

Less than five years ago, Newcastle United was sold by Mike Ashley for £305 million to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, The Reuben Brothers and PCP Capital Partners.

Depending on how you view things, that was either a shedload of money or a really good deal. Sheffield United is on the market for around £20 million, that's half a 2019 Joelinton. However, Sir Jim Ratcliffe forked out £1.25bn to become a minority stakeholder of Manchester United, that's half a 2026 Joelinton.

There has been a lot of talk about the PIF losing interest in Newcastle United based on the Saudi Arabian representatives taking a back seat to allow the people they've installed at the club to run things.

Combine that with rumours from the likes of Richard Keys about interest in selling off their share of the club, and now seeing the PIF pull out of LIV Golf, people are drawing their own conclusions.

Newcastle United is now worth £1bn

Thankfully, the iPaper has produced a report which puts those claims to bed. First off, they noted how the PIF has just signed off on a huge financial outlay for a new state-of-the-art training facility.

The report also goes on to give more concrete evidence of why the PIF will be hanging on to their investment, and that's the fact that Newcastle United is growing exactly how they wanted it to.

"It is also viewed by PIF as a successful investment off the field. Including the sale price of £305m, PIF have invested around £800m in Newcastle so far. According to the fund’s own internal metric the valuation of the club has significantly outstripped that investment.

"One source familiar with football acquisitions believes Newcastle are now worth more than £1bn based on the price paid for similar clubs. Contrast that with LIV Golf, which is projected to require further hefty injections of cash to compete with the established golf tours, and you can see why sources describe the two investments as “chalk and cheese”.

Things are slowly moving in the right direction

The club's value has tripled in less than five years, and yes, the PIF has put a lot of money into it, so it's not exactly making them a profit as yet, but if it continues to grow at a similar rate, they aren't going to want to throw in the towel.

Newcastle has significantly grown its revenues since the takeover, and while there's still quite a gap to bridge, we're getting closer each year. As long as that continues, the club will have more money to spend on transfers, which improves the team and attracts more interest, which attracts more revenue and so on and so forth.

As long as all the charts continue to trend in the right direction, the PIF will hang around.