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It’s business; just business.
It’s just business that has seen Newcastle United enter a shirt sponsorship deal with Wonga, the short-term loan company (representative APR 4,214 per cent), which has been described as a “legal loan shark” by MPs. Just business that, as is their right, they have walked away from a contract with Virgin Money because they could find more cash elsewhere.
It was just business when the naming rights to St James’ Park, one of the most iconic landmarks in a city whose mood is still, to a large extent, influenced by the club that are perched in its centre, were put up for sale. It was the market which dictated that no worthy bidder came forward (Sports Direct, Mike Ashley’s company, has done rather nicely out of "showcasing" the name for no fee; after today's announcement, the name is reverting back).
It was just business that meant Newcastle finally declined to sign a couple of defenders this summer, abandoning - for the time being - moves for Mathieu Debuchy, the France international, and Douglas of Twente, either because the fees kept changing or they found themselves dealing with unwilling negotiators. Their model for transfers has value at its core.
It was just business when they sold Andy Carroll to Liverpool for £35 million because .... well, that one doesn’t need spelling out. And to a certain degree, it was just business when they dispensed with Chris Hughton, because although their former manager had secured their position in the Barclays Premier League and was popular, they believed that Alan Pardew would bring them greater success, a touch of Hollywood and more television revenue.
It was just business when they turned off the escalator in the main reception at the ground, when they attached motion-sensors to their lighting and renegotiated their energy bills, saving more than £200,000 over the last three years. The £56,000 they spent on a 580ft-deep borehole for irrigating their training ground this summer is just business, too, because it could save them as much as £500,000 in the next decade.
It’s just business that they have been working so assiduously to achieve Category One status for their Academy, even after initially being assessed below that grade earlier this year. Extra expenditure now will, in time, result in Newcastle being able to sign and develop talented young players from across the country; cheaper, in the long-run, than buying them later.
Equally, it was just business when Newcastle announced price freezes for ten-year season tickets and greatly extended their family section, because the North East is not a wealthy place. But get to them young, so the argument goes, and you’ve got them for life and a full stadium brings guarantees of income, looks better for the telly, intimidates the opposition, wins matches, attracts players and earns more prize money.
It’s just business. It’s not personal. Five years after he bought the club for £134 million, allegedly without completing due diligence and clearly with no sense of what he was letting himself in for, this phrase is at the heart of Ashley’s Newcastle. Not business as in taking money out, but business as in employing any means necessary in the cause of self-sufficiency.
When it was first mooted - in October 2009, when Newcastle were in the npower Championship and at the same time as Ashley removed the club from the market and gave Hughton a permanent contract - the issue of stadium naming rights felt like an insult. After relegation, Joe Kinnear, the treatment of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer and so many other embarrassments, it was lashing out, gratuitous, hurtful.
It was never those things, of course. It was just business. While the hierarchy at Newcastle acknowledge that their decisions can be contentious - or “off the wall”, as Derek Llambias put it recently - their argument has always been that they are taken for long-term gain. That they have to compete with the big boys somehow and if Wonga or St James’ brings them a new player or investment, then so be it. Changing the name back is just business too, if only because it softens the Wonga deal.
Three years ago, when naming rights was announced, I wrote an editorial sort of article calling for Ashley to go even as he said he was staying. I stand by those words because it was a piece of its time; while Hughton’s team were doing brilliantly, it felt as though it was in spite of the people above them and that the essence of Newcastle was being corroded. It was a howl of rage about how a proud institution was being degraded, about what football was becoming.
Down the line, it helps that the club have found a cogent plan and are explaining things more (encouraged by a tireless PR department). I’ve got to know Llambias a little better - part of the job is to make contacts, to get to the heart of what’s happening - and for all that I still hate what happened during the early part of the Ashley era (the relegation season was the closest I’ve ever come to not enjoying my job), I actually like him.
I like the financial blueprint they are sticking to. I haven’t forgotten the Newcastle that Ashley walked into - horribly indebted, instalments of money still to be paid on bloated, big-name players who had already left, arrogant (at the top), with a team of individuals - and I like the fact that the signings now being sought should be young and hungry. I like the notion of self-sufficiency, too, particularly in the present environment. I like the long-term contracts and I like stability.
I like the fact that, from now on, I'll be able to write the words 'St James' Park' in this newspaper without worrying that they'll be altered, but I don’t like the idea of Wonga very much. I find it uncomfortable that there will be an association between a pay-day lender and a football club in a region suffering from high unemployment and the effects of recession and I’m not sure how much that association will benefit Newcastle’s "brand image" (even writing that phrase makes me feel nauseous). These are my own personal political beliefs.
And I feel empathy for someone like Michael Martin, the editor of the respected True Faith fanzine, when he says that “this is close to breaking point for me, the one that breaks the camel’s back” because - and I’m probably putting words in his mouth here - he thinks his football club should be a beacon, should stand for something. And when a local politician and season ticket-holder says he will not return to the ground while Wonga is involved with Newcastle, I think that's both relevant and important.
It’s just business. Whatever the concerns of MPs and campaigners, Wonga also sponsors Blackpool and Hearts and does the same for a primetime television show on ITV; should Newcastle be judged any differently? And, really, aren’t most clubs complicit in some way? Aren’t they happy to take money from bookmakers and banks and investment companies? What about the cosy relationship with McDonalds, Nike and others? Isn’t this all shades of the same colour? (Newcastle used to be sponsored by Northern Rock).
Barclays, for instance, sponsors the Premier League. Its community involvement in football has been lauded and its money has been welcome. Yet the World Development Movement recently said that the bank’s Capital arm “risks fueling a speculative bubble and contributing to hunger and poverty for millions of the world's poorest people”. The Libor scandal, anybody? (declaration of interest/hypocrisy: I bank at Barclays. I work for News International. I wear Nike running stuff. I vote Labour).
My concern with the Ashley/Llambias model is where and if the business side collides with football. The sale of Carroll, the sacking of Hughton, prompted emotional responses that threatened stability inside the dressing room and in the stands. Things calmed - and history looks back kindly on both decisions - but does there come a moment when that risk is too, er, risky?
I wonder the same about this summer’s transfer activity. Refusing to compromise (the club deny this, pointing to the Papiss Cisse deal as an instance where they have bitten the bullet on a fee) on the price of players has left them without cover in defence, a policy which has been exposed by injuries to Fabricio Coloccini and Steven Taylor. Just as Liverpool compromised with their £35 million, sometimes it has to be done.
St James’ (as we can now officially refer to it again) and Wonga form part of the same theme, although there is a slight contradiction here, too. To me, it feels like dents in the club’s soul and, in the case of the latter, a poor example to set. There are emotive costs that come with it and, depending on your viewpoint, costs in status and pride, yet, having put £200 million of his own money into the club, Ashley is not prepared to spend any more. It has to come from somewhere.
If you want to improve and grow, it has to come from somewhere. If you want to buy new players - and occasionally compromise on fees - it has to come from somewhere. If you aren’t subsidised by a state or a willing sugar-daddy, then it has come come from somewhere. If you want to hold your nose and say that this isn’t for you any more, then I wouldn’t blame you. But it’s not personal. It’s business; business as usual. I don’t like it very much, but I get it. 
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