Newcastle United recently completed a post-season trip to Australia in which they played two matches with very different levels of success.
First up the Magpies took on fellow Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur at Melbourne Cricket Ground. The game ended 1-1 with Newcastle winning the subsequent penalty shootout. While hardly a full-blooded affair, it was a decent game with two top sides putting on a show.
However, the second game was an entirely different story with Eddie Howe fielding the kids in a match against the A-League All Stars at the Marvel Stadium. Howe's youths were humiliated, losing 8-0 with the club facing backlash from Aussie fans who paid good money to watch a team they didn't even recognise.
That trip is set to net Newcastle around £3million according to The Chronicle, and that, at the end of the day, is why the club agreed to partake. With Financial Fair Play tightening its grip on our purse strings, the club are having to be creative in finding ways to be allowed to spend ... *checks notes* ... their own money.
In pre-season, Newcastle look set to bag another £7million from another friendly tournament, but again will have to travel to the other side of the world to do so with Japan the destination this time.
The Magpies are set to jet off to Japan with Far East electronic giants Docomo funding a two-game tour.
Last year Newcastle took part in the Premier League Summer Series in America, which was a success but no doubt gruelling for the players with plenty of travelling between games and then all the PR that goes along with the tour.
Japan is just a two match tour and given the size of the country compared to the US, the travel between games is likely to be far less taxing. Also, Japanese fandom is wild and if this tour allows Newcastle to tap into that market it could generate them a fair amount of money every year. Get the kawaii Newcastle merchandise out there.
The money earned from these tours should help to unlock spending power along with the commencement of the Adidas partnership and the Champions League money hitting the bottom line.
Newcastle's owners have also been working on more partnerships with Amanda Staveley letting slip that she'd recently been in Monaco for meetings.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
10 | 13 | 25 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
10 | 10 | 23 |
3 |
Nottingham Forest
|
10 | 7 | 19 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
10 | 6 | 18 |
5 |
Aston Villa
|
9 | 5 | 18 |
6 |
Chelsea
|
9 | 8 | 17 |
7 |
Brighton
|
10 | 3 | 16 |
8 |
Bournemouth
|
10 | 1 | 15 |
9 |
Newcastle United
|
10 | 0 | 15 |
10 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
9 | 8 | 13 |
11 |
Brentford
|
9 | 0 | 13 |
12 |
Fulham
|
9 | 0 | 12 |
13 |
Manchester United
|
9 | -3 | 11 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
10 | -6 | 11 |
15 |
Leicester
|
10 | -4 | 10 |
16 |
Everton
|
10 | -7 | 9 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
10 | -5 | 7 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
10 | -11 | 5 |
19 |
Southampton
|
10 | -12 | 4 |
20 |
Wolves
|
10 | -13 | 3 |