Yasir Al-Rumayyan reaffirms PIF's commitment to Newcastle United

Once again, there's a dark cloud hanging over Newcastle United after the Magpies were beaten to the signing of Victor Munoz.

Liverpool outfoxed Newcastle in the transfer market once again, and while fans have every right to feel aggrieved, there's a good section of fans who are directing their anger in the wrong places.

Many are blaming Eddie Howe or the owners for something that was absolutely out of their control. Last summer, yes, Howe and the owners were to blame for a lot of what went wrong in the transfer market, but in this particular case, it was simply a case of a player choosing a better option (in their eyes).

Regardless of the reality, it has given those with an axe to grind more ammunition in their quest to prove that the PIF has lost interest in Newcastle United.

The 85% owners have become increasingly distant since their 2021 takeover of the club, and since Amanda Staveley left, there has been little linking the club to the fans in recent years.

Newcastle's majority owners are going nowhere

Recently, the PIF pulled out of LIV Golf as it streamlined its investment portfolio, which led to reports that they could be ready to dump Newcastle United, although this was quickly played down.

Now, speaking at the FII Summit (via Shields Gazette), Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has outlined PIF's commitment to global investments, which includes Newcastle United.

“For us at the PIF, we always continue to invest, be very much diverse and our portfolio structurally resilient,” he said. “We are a long-term patient investor and we will remain committed to all of our investments and investment strategy around the world.

“A lot of people thought we would stop deploying investments internationally. I can tell you that we're not going to stop. The percentages are going lower, but the absolute numbers will continue to grow.

“We just got our board to approve our new strategy until the end of 2030. What PIF did since 2016, we basically brought the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the world. Now our new strategy is to bring the world back to Saudi.”

Where's the stadium, lads?

While Newcastle wasn't mentioned directly, it's nonetheless encouraging that our majority owners remain committed to their investment.

Now what we need is for them to show it a bit more. Get moving on the new stadium, give us an update on the new training ground.

David Hopkinson is now our link to the PIF; they were never meant to be front and centre in the project; they're just the money, but we've not seen enough from Hopkinson yet to give us any hope that anything meaningful is happening.

The recent announcement of £30 million of investment over the summer was good, but there are much bigger, more pressing investments that have been stalling for way too long.