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Clause failure illustrates Ashley incompetence

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OPINION

The incompetence of Mike Ashley as the owner of Newcastle United has been illustrated on countless occasions over his 11 years of involvement at St. James’ Park.

While the club’s two relegations in that time cannot solely be laid at Ashley’s feet, it is hard to deny that the Sports Direct tycoon  played a big part in both of those traumatic episodes for the club.

And, their most recent relegation in the 2015/16 season could have been made so much worse after a report shed light on an inexplicable failure on Ashley’s behalf.

As reported by the Chronicle, the club shockingly failed to include a clause in any players’ contract which meant wages would reduce upon relegation to the Championship.

This saw the club’s £97.8million wage bill become an EFL record in the 2016/17 season, with not one first-team player seeing their wages take a nosedive.

In fact, the players ended up earning more in their Championship season than they did in the previous one, with the £9.9million bonus for winning the title providing a bonus to their earnings.

While this shocking and unnecessary financial gamble ended up paying off for the club with their promotion straight back into the top-flight, Ashley’s failure to include such clauses could have seen the club plunged into a whole new world of trouble.

The Toon Army have watched with joy as Sunderland have plunged down to League One next season, but that could very well have been Newcastle had promotion not been achieved under Rafa Benitez.

A wage bill of nearly £100million contributed to a record loss of around £90million for the club last season, and had that not been offset by the riches of promotion then Newcastle would have been in deep trouble this past term.

This episode merely serves to illustrate the downright incompetence of Ashley and his team, led by managing director Lee Charnley.

The longer they remain at the club the more likely a catastrophic turn of events will befall the club once again, and fans must cross everything and hope for a takeover this summer before that happens.

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