AVFC__

🤓Why Newcastle don't HAVE to sell more this summer I've been asked a lot about Newcastle's financial position (UEFA Football Earnings, UEFA SCR etc) including on this week's Talksport overview and specifically whether they need to sell Guimarães and/or Hall. Arsenal (and Arsenal fans) would love you to believe they do and they are over a barrel. The problem with Guimarães is that he wants to go, not that Newcastle have to sell. The first thing to note is that the Gordon sale is almost certainly in the 2026/27 accounts, not 2025/26 even though the deal was announced on 29 May. Newcastle had no particular need for a further, say, £42m of player trading profit in 2025/26, as the Isak money was already in there and PL PSR was comfortably passed due to the intra group sales in the prior year. From a UEFA perspective, the Gordon profit is far more valuable in the later years, because the club had already breached football earnings (the PSR-like UEFA test) for the period ending 30 June 2025, which is what triggered the settlement agreement. We don't yet know the full details of that settlement, but we do know the total fine was €10m, with €7m conditional ie only €3m unconditional. That implies a significantly smaller breach than even Aston Villa's the year before. The standard settlement structure gives a club leeway above the €60m acceptable deviation in the early years, before regulating back to a €60m cap over the full three-year period covering 2025/26, 2026/27 and 2027/28. A €60m cap over 3 years is a challenge for Newcastle but it bites a long way into the future. If Gordon was finalised in 2026/27, Newcastle are on course for a modest overspend (say, €20m depending on league position and total commercial revenue - matchday is unlikely to materially exceed £60m whatever happens next season) which would be permitted under the settlement. Remember the usual base allowance in the settlement is €5m, topped up to €60m with owner equity contributions, which the ownership can comfortably provide. That leaves allowable leeway available for 2027/28 too - a year that's impossible to forecast at this stage, not least because nobody knows whether there will be any European revenue at all. It's also worth remembering that the Gordon and Tonali sales take maybe £15m of annual amortisation off the cost base, plus two sets of relatively high wages. Depending on the replacements, the net increase in amortisation and wages needn't be significant at all. So if there is a crunch, it likely doesn't come before the end of the three-year period - the 3 years ending 30 June 2028 and assessed in 2029. So there should still be capacity for investment before then. UEFA SCR is not a huge issue either. We know that the breach to 31 Dec 2025 was small because the fine was only €3m. This implies a miss of only €10m. In any event, there is no SCR check in for December 2026 for UEFA and the PL SCR test is easily met as it is 85% for the club in 26/27. Newcastle have a battle to keep Guimarães because the player wants to leave. But the idea that they'd be forced to sell in this window in particular is fanciful.