Amanda Staveley has been talking about leaving Newcastle United and the reasons why. A few brief take outs below from an excellent lengthy exclusive from George Caulkin at The Athletic. Amanda Staveley declaring ‘My preference would have been to stay with Newcastle, but life doesn’t always work out exactly how you want it to.’ The now former Newcastle United director talking in the interview about how much she loved here time working at the club.
After the takeover, Amanda Staveley and her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi were given a paid management contract to assist in running the team. However, an executive team led by Darren Eales was appointed to run the team on behalf of Newcastle United’s owners. Amanda Staveley, however, calls the claims that the plan was always for her to leave a few years after the October 2021 takeover “absolute rubbish.” “No, that’s absolute rubbish. “I’m heartbroken not to be there because I love the club more than anything; the fans, the community, everything. And I would wish to be there every day, but it’s also not fair. “The club’s management team needs to have the chance to deliver their business plan,” she says.
The Athletic’s George Caulkin discusses leaving Newcastle United with Amanda Staveley on July 30, 2024:
Perhaps the ending “might have been different if we had not been so hands-on initially”, Staveley says, or if they’d taken up an offer from Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Newcastle’s chairman, to take on a full-time executive role, but Staveley “felt that the right thing for Newcastle was to bring in someone with the right experience”. Eales, who joined Newcastle from Atlanta United in MLS, was that person.
So why not just sit on her investment and stay, enjoying the ride from the directors’ box with less stress? Here the professional morphs into something quite different. “I couldn’t do that,” Staveley says. “And, I’ll be honest, I have a degenerative disease in Huntington’s and I need to work.
“There’s actually some wonderful things that have come out about Huntington’s and a potential cure or the slowing down of the disease and its symptoms but every day is precious and I don’t want to waste time in case I don’t have a huge amount of time. I need to keep my brain active.”
The upshot is that Staveley will move on, which means a painful goodbye. She quashes the theory that this was always going to be a semi-temporary relationship, that once she had secured the financing to buy out Mike Ashley and had stabilised Newcastle she would cash in and look for something else.
“No, that’s absolute rubbish,” she says. “I’m heartbroken not to be there because I love the club more than anything; the fans, the community, everything. And I would wish to be there every day, but it’s also not fair. The club’s management team need to have the chance to deliver their business plan. We did a great job and it’s been a privilege to be part of it, but they need to be left to do their jobs, too.
“Maybe we were right for Newcastle for those few years. Maybe that’s what they needed. But I’d be useless just standing there doing nothing and it wouldn’t be fair on Darren if we’re always there telling them what we think. There’s processes and accountability and they’ll figure it out.”
“I knew what was coming in terms of me leaving but the fans and PIF deserved every focus of mine,” Staveley says. “Had I left before (the PSR deadline) and we’d breached, then that would have been bad. It was very, very difficult, but I was determined to make sure Darren (Eales) has a clear runway.”
“My preference would have been to stay with Newcastle, but life doesn’t always work out exactly how you want it to.
“Nothing is going to replicate that. I fell in love with Newcastle, the club and the people and that can’t change, but I didn’t want to get in Newcastle’s way.
“It’s got to be about what’s best for Newcastle.
“Mehrdad and I are keen to be hands-on. We’re hard-working people, I love to be very busy and to engage and I love football.
“Very sadly, we have to move on to other projects and that might involve us taking a stake in another club or buying another club and that’s difficult.
“But it’s possible.”
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