Newcastle United set to meet with Premier League and other 19 clubs on Thursday to discuss PSR

Newcastle United will join the other 19 top-flight clubs around the table on Thursday as they meet with the Premier League to discuss and vote on potential changes to the current Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

If you've been reading NUFC Feed for a while, you may have picked up on the fact that we absolutely despise PSR, and if you're reading this, then chances are you're a Newcastle fan and likely hate PSR too.

So, it's good that PSR changes are on the agenda on Thursday, as reported by The Shields Gazette. However, the two options on the table to replace the existing rules - Squad Cost Rules (SCR) and Top-Bottom Anchoring (TBA), aren't going to move the needle enough to open the doors for Newcastle to do what they have the ability to do - spend money.

SCR would see clubs allowed to spend 85% of the revenue they generate on football-related things such as player transfers. This would be more in line with the UEFA squad cost rules, which is capped at 70% of a club's revenue. This is clearly less than ideal as the 'big six' clubs generate vast amounts of revenue compared to the other 14. Tottenham are seen by many to be the outlier in the 'big six' in terms of on-field success, but their revenues are far greater than what Newcastle produce right now.

Deloitte.com

The Manchester clubs are vehemently opposed to Anchoring

The Deloitte Money League for European football shows Tottenham's revenue at €615 million, ahead of Chelsea with €545.5m, and then the next English side is Newcastle with €371.8m. That's an impressive gap and provides a clear advantage to 'bigger clubs' when you consider that clubs like Newcastle could spend money way above their revenue streams without any fear of falling into financial danger.

Top-Bottom Anchoring is the other method on the table. This would see all clubs capped with what they could spend based on a figure which would be five times the amount received in central league income by the Premier League’s bottom club. At first glance, this one sounds fair as it puts everyone on an even keel, but once you look beyond the surface, it has the opposite effect to SCR in that it severely hampers the bigger clubs.

Again, that might sound like a good thing initially, but it's surely every club's ambition to be a 'big club', so they'd ultimately be cutting their noses off to spite their face. The likes of Manchester United and Manchester City are vocal in their opposition to TBA, saying that a cap would prevent them from being able to attract top players to the club, and therefore the Premier League as wages are included in the calculation.

Newcastle are in a lose-lose position

Clubs will vote on what to do next on Thursday, and as things stand, we have no idea what's going to happen. We're not sure if there's a third option beyond these two. Whether that be to keep things as they are or scrap PSR altogether - which is very unlikely.

Newcastle United looks set to lose no matter what happens as they are in a unique position of having unlimited spending power but not being allowed to spend.

Another thing on the agenda on Thursday will be a discussion around the introduction of semi-automated offside technology, which we thought was coming in last year. Plans are still to introduce the technology at some point this season, so hopefully, we'll get an update later this week.