Newcastle United co-owner Amanda Staveley takes to social media to address fan concerns over Australia trip

Newcastle United flew out to Australia straight after the final Premier League game of the season to partake in two friendlies down under.

The move was slammed by fans and pundits, and even the players themselves at was seen as a waste of energy to travel to the otherside of the world for two meaningless games, especially with it being an international tournament year.

Thankfully, Newcastle's squad came through it unscathed and Eddie Howe used reserve players only in the second fixture allaying any concerns over the fitness of internationals, albeit further adding to the ridiculousness of the situation with Australian fans who paid good money to see their heroes, instead seeing the C-Team get humped 8-0 by an A-League All Stars side.

The reason behind the trip was purely financial. With Financial Fair Play being as crushing as it is, clubs are having to find new ways to generate extra revenue to open the FFP doors in order to be able to improve the squad.

amdandastaveley1/Instagram

Amanda Staveley doesn't sound too happy about the Australia trip either

It was clearly a move that had a lot of detractors, but one that the club shouldn't have had to make anyway, if the FFP rules were scrapped or at least changed.

Co-owner Amanda Staveley has now taken to Instagram to share her feelings on the Australia trip while teasing a potential new sponsorship deal for the club.

"I've seen a lot of comments about the NUFC Australia trip which I'd like to address. Besides being a shareholder, I am first and foremost a fan. As a fan I understand that this trip was controversial. However, personal opinions aside, revenue generating trips are crucial to a Club's commercial success. The decision to go was taken by management, and ultimately I have to support their decisions. Nobody wants a fresh team ready for the new season more than me, and we are doing everything we can to support our manager in achieving this. We Are United."

Did Mandy get a bit ahead of herself?

That was the second draft of the post, however, with the first, now-deleted post adding that she and Mehrdad have just been out in Monaco for positive meetings around a new sponsorship deal.

We're guessing she wasn't supposed to share that yet which is why it was deleted so quickly.

It does feel like Wor Mandy has missed the point slightly - it wasn't so much about the players being fit for the new season, there's plenty of time for that, but it was the overall timing of it, the distance traveled and then the lack of respect shown to the Aussie fans by putting out a team of kids. Regardless, it's still good that it has been addressed by someone at the club.