Bob Ratcliffe suggests Nice were chosen over Newcastle for takeover

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Newcastle United could have been a target for INEOS.

INEOS completed their takeover of Nice this summer, but it could well have been Newcastle United that were the subject of the move.

Nice saw INEOS – fronted by billionaire Jim Ratcliffe – take over the club this summer, and they enabled the club to bring in some exciting late signings.

Striker Kasper Dolberg and wingers Adam Ounas and Alexis Claude-Maurice arrived this summer, and a late move for PSG left back Stanley N’Soki, a recent target for Newcastle, was also pushed through.

Those are four impressive signings for Nice, and it’s all been driven by Ratcliffe’s takeover, having chosen the Ligue 1 side over a Premier League club.

INEOS Football’s chief executive Bob Ratcliffe, Jim’s brother, has admitted to BBC Sportsweek that INEOS also looked at Premier League clubs, but no deal made sense.

He admitted that Newcastle was one opportunity, but the cost just to buy the club was hundreds of millions, and that’s before spending cash to get into ‘the Everton Cup’, which presumably means just fighting for seventh place.

“We’d obviously been looking at Premiership clubs as well. We spent quite a lot of time looking at Premier League clubs,” said Ratcliffe. “We looked at the valuation of Premiership clubs and £5billion in revenues for the Premier League and top six clubs being valued at £2bn and upwards, and £450 (million) of net profit before tax. (It’s) pretty difficult to rationalise purchases in the Premier League at this time for us and then, if you look below the top six, they’re all £150m and above and you’re going to write a cheque for £50m and get in the ‘Everton Cup’.”

“In fairness you look at Newcastle, and we looked at a lot of clubs in the Premiership, after the sort of noise around Chelsea, people talked to us about a high proportion of clubs. Obviously people talked to us about Newcastle as well. But again you come back to a valuation in the hundreds of millions and it’s very difficult to contemplate,” he added.

INEOS seemingly feel that such a move just wasn’t financially sensible, and whilst Newcastle fans would have surely loved to see such a takeover given the ambitious moves they’ve already made at Nice, they’re left stuck with Mike Ashley for now, which will hopefully – for all connected with the Magpies – end soon.