Newcastle now waiting for Dougie Freedman to accept sporting director role but there is an issue - journalist

Newcastle United are waiting for Dougie Freedman to accept the role of sporting director vacated by Dan Ashworth.

The Crystal Palace head of recruitment appears to have beaten the competition and has been offered the job but Eagles chairman Steve Parish isn't giving up the fight just yet.

Newcastle are now near the end of the recruitment process to replace Dan Ashworth who is still yet to take up his new position at Manchester United as they refuse to pay the compensation Newcastle are demanding. In fairness, Jim Ratcliffe could probably use that £20million Newcastle are demanding to fix the roof on the Theatre of Streams after Old Trafford started leaking in during the game against Arsenal on Sunday.

Reports had suggested that Newcastle had narrowed it down to former Scotland striker Dougie Freedman and sporting director of 777 Group, Johannes Spors.

Steve Parish hopes he can convince Dougie Freedman to stay at Crystal Palace

Now The Guardian journalist Ed Aarons has posted on X that Steve Parish is hoping to convince Freedman to stick around at Crystal Palace.

We hope that Parish fails as Freedman's recruitment record at Crystal Palace is inspiring, finding the likes of Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise as well as beating Newcastle to Brazilian wonderkid Matheus Franca.

Having Freedman at Newcastle would also go in our favour if we were to try and sign Michael Olise this summer as has been rumoured.

We'd prefer Freedman to Johannes Spors

Johannes Spors has a decent record behind him too, but his involvement with 777 Group is a major red flag.

The Group that is struggling to buy Everton at the moment also owns a host of other clubs, amongst them is Standard Liege who had Isaac Hayden on loan from Newcastle until the deal was broken off in January after the Standard Liege players weren't getting paid.

Other clubs under the 777 umbrella have seen their fans protest their ownership. While all of this may be well outside of Spors' control, it just doesn't look good from our point of view. Here's hoping we've offered Freedman a deal that's too good to turn down.