‘What?’ - Simon Jordan brutally shuts down David Hopkinson for Newcastle United claim
David Hopkinson remains confident that Newcastle United will be an elite club by 2030 following a hectic summer window.
Simon Jordan has once again questioned David Hopkinson’s ambition to transform Newcastle United into a global powerhouse by 2030.
The Toon CEO made headlines when he went on the airwaves to set a bold timeline. At the time, the Magpies were struggling in the Premier League, with several top stars at the centre of transfer speculation.
A hectic summer window saw the likes of Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes leave. However, Newcastle recruited well in the final few weeks to give new boss Matthias Jaissle a fighting chance of delivering a successful season.
‘Difficult’ - Simon Jordan
A new training ground - albeit one that will not boost revenue - being announced was also a statement of intent from the Public Investment Fund. Hopkinson met with the media last Friday to reaffirm Newcastle’s lofty ambitions after a strong start to the season.
Speaking to talkSPORT, former Crystal Palace owner doubled down on his scepticism towards Hopkinson’s 2030 vision. He said: “It would appear very difficult to me for Newcastle (to compete). If you're going to sell your best players, then you're going to find yourself in a situation where you're constantly rebuilding. I think they have very little chance of making those strides to winning the Premier League.
“He's (Hopkinson) careful with his words. He talks about ambition. Well, we all have ambitions, don't we? What we're talking about is the reality of what you're trying to achieve rather than the ambition. That means nothing.
“If you want to be a club that's winning the Premier League, then you've got to do two things: you've got to keep your best players and you've got to massively, massively increase the revenue of this football club. If you're going to compete with Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, even Tottenham, you have got to get your turnover up by double what you've got now.
“He knows that and he talks about that in the broadest of terms, but he doesn't tell anybody how he's going to do it. If you're not going to put a spade in the ground and you're not going to build a stadium, you've not got any commercialisation of the stadium to do that. What are you telling me that you're going to do?”
Simon Jordan urges Newcastle United decision
While the stadium ground issue has been resolved, St James' Park’s future remains in the balance. Jordan added: “By the admission of their sporting director, they will continue to sell players to comply with PSR because the rules of PSR are so patently unfair for teams like Newcastle. Maybe things will change.
“If that changes, then you can see the colour of PIF’s money. But what should be understood is what are they doing with the stadium? Because the clear vision of being able to build Newcastle into a space where they can actually do what they say they want to do is by building a new stadium. And you can do it in that part of the world.
“Don't tell me you can't, because you can. You can do that in that part of the world. Sunderland did it, for god's sakes. So with due respect to them, they need to build a 70,000-seater, 75,000-seater stadium in Newcastle and commercialise it the way that Everton will eventually do with the ownership that might want to be there.”