Amanda Staveley stepping down as the face of Newcastle United was always the plan

Yesterday the news broke that Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi will be selling their 6% stake in Newcastle United.

It was a story that seemed to come out of the blue and in reporting on what happens next we cited Fabrizio Romano's post on X which claimed that this was always part of the plan and we questioned the validity of that.

After a bit more digging, we can confirm that Fabrizio Romano was spot on, in fact, we've known this day was coming since day one of the takeover.

Amanda Staveley being the face of the club was always intended to be a temporary gig.

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We've known since day one that Staveley's appointment was temporary

This one paragraph in The Telegraph's report on the takeover back in 2021 foretold this day would come.

Staveley, who has fought tirelessly for the takeover, is expected to front the club, at least in the short term, until the Saudis feel comfortable in their new business venture. Ultimate control is then expected to shift to the new chairman and PIF governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, alongside a newly-appointed chief executive officer."

Newcastle have appointed an experienced boardroom with people from strong football backgrounds, something that Amanda Stavely simply did not have.

Many people are seeing it as a positive move by the club

How hands-on Yasir Al-Rumayyan will now be going forward is anyone's guess, but with the board he has assembled, the club should be in good hands and he could just sit back and sign the cheques.

We're still not sure how much the transition will affect how the club operates, if at all, but we're sure this is all a positive move forward.

One thing we can learn from this though, is to take a few extra minutes to research one's claims before publishing an article. Whoops!