PIF green-light massive £155m Premier League spending spree and Newcastle United fans are furious

The Saudi Arabia PIF, Newcastle United's 80% owners, are flashing the cash in the transfer market this January. Unfortunately, it's not at St James' Park.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the PIF-backed Saudi clubs spending their money. It's their money, they don't have PSR to worry about, do what you want.

However, when Newcastle United, the first club they bought into, the Premier League side for which they allegedly have big plans is sat scratching its arse because rules restrict them from spending big, it's definitely annoying.

What is really grating the Toon Army's cheese, though, is that Al-Nassr, one of the five PIF-backed Saudi clubs, are spending fortunes on players from our Premier League rivals, ultimately giving our direct competition more power in the transfer market.

In what universe is Kaoru Mitoma worth £90 million?

The Saudi club is close to sealing a £65 million deal with Aston Villa for Jhon Duran while they've had a bid rejected from Brighton, believed to be around £54 million for Kaoru Mitoma with reports suggesting they would go up to £90 million to get the deal done.

That's a lot of money going into the coffers of two clubs in the top half of the Premier League which will open up a heft amount of headroom for them in terms of PSR.

We'd love to know in what world Duran is worth £65 million and Mitoma is anywhere near a £90 million player.

If PSR wasn't a thing we'd not be complaining half as much

Meanwhile, Newcastle are fumbling around trying to offload players for a few million quid here and there because we know that the second we deal with a Saudi club the world will collapse in on itself.

We sold Allan Saint-Maximin to Al-Ahli for, probably, less than he was worth and the deal was still picked apart by rival fans insisting that we were cheating. Ignoring the fact that most of them were supporters of clubs who had sold players to Saudi Arabia for fees that were way over the odds.

Why aren't we selling Kieran Trippier to the Saudis for £50 million? Sean Longstaff for another £50 million? Matt Targett ... yes, £50 million, if Mitoma is £90 million.

If PSR wasn't holding us back so much, we'd be fine with this sort of thing going on. Clubs aren't going to turn their noses up at ridiculous offers, but the fact that we would easily be able to throw money around like that if it weren't for these ridiculous restrictions makes the whole thing much harder to swallow.