NEWSFEEDZONE

Newcastle co-owner Amanda Staveley says she “doesn’t think it’s particularly fair” that Roman Abramovich has decided to sell Chelsea following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Abramovich, 55, has faced calls from politicians for him to be sanctioned as he is alleged to have strong ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, which he has denied.

Staveley, speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit, also faced questions about Newcastle’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, following the club’s Saudi-backed takeover.

She said: “We’re always going to have geopolitical issues.

“I’m really sad that someone is going to have a football club taken away because of a relationship he may have with someone.

“I don’t think that’s particularly fair to be honest. But we do have to hold all of our relationships to account.”

Staveley reiterated that the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which owns 80% of Newcastle, was “separate” from the Saudi state, which has been accused of human rights abuses.

October’s £305m takeover was subject to Newcastle providing “legally binding assurances” to the Premier League that the state would not control the club.

“We should always be held to task,” she added. “One thing we showed when doing the Premier League [ownership] test was that there was that separation. We and the PIF run the club with autonomy.”

Staveley, who owns 10% of Newcastle shares but admitted in High Court documents to borrowing £30.5m from fellow co-owners the Reuben brothers, also said she had looked at buying Chelsea before setting up a consortium to buy Newcastle.

“One great thing about taking four years to buy Newcastle is we had a great opportunity to look at every club, including Chelsea,” she said. “Chelsea is a wonderful club, but there was only one club for us and will only ever be one club for us.

“We like the challenge of buying a club at 20th position [in the league] and getting it to the top.”

Meanwhile, Staveley and her husband and business partner Mehrdad Ghodoussi are the subject of a High Court claim by former Newcastle owner Mike Ashley, who says she breached the terms of a £10m loan by criticising his tenure at the club.

A spokesperson has said they are “confident” of defending the claims.

The allegation centres around comments she made about “looking forward” to removing signs advertising Ashley’s company Sports Direct at St James’ Park and being “slightly frustrated” about being unable to take a picture without the signs in view.

Those signs were removed in December, two months after the takeover, which pleased fans who thought it was a hangover from the previous regime.

Asked about the case, Staveley added: “We have filed a defence. We are big fans of his and fans of Sports Direct, but we want to see something different for Newcastle.

“If Sports Direct came and said we want to pay you tens of millions of pounds, we would be delighted to speak to Mike. It’s about revenue. It’s a difficult challenging time.

“Mike had run the club efficiently. We arrived and had a different business model to turn it into a global club and brand. We want to challenge for trophies and that needs investment.”