Speaking on the Transfer Window Podcast, Duncan Castles has claimed that Newcastle turned down a ‘superb opportunity’ regarding a sporting director in January.
The Magpies have been in the market for a new recruitment chief for quite some time now, but as of yet, they’ve been unable to hire a specialist in that area.
However, according to Castles, one of Europe’s top sporting directors offered to work for Newcastle on a contingency basis throughout January for a one-off fee that could have been repaid if the club were relegated.
What’s the story?
Castles made a claim about Newcastle.
“I can tell you that they had the opportunity to have one of Europe’s top sporting directors working for them effectively on a contingency basis. He would just look after this window for a one-off fee, and I’m told that the fee would have been returnable if Newcastle were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the season. In my view, that was a superb opportunity to get expertise in, but they decided to stick with Steve Nickson, who is not a bad recruitment professional, but he’s never worked at this end of the market before,” Castles said.
Not clever
This isn’t the smartest thing Newcastle have ever done.
If you have the opportunity to work with one of Europe’s top sporting directors, then you have to take that chance.
Of course, we don’t know what this one-off fee was, but when you’re as rich as Newcastle, does it really matter?
The Magpies’ transfer window was rather underwhelming in the end as they signed a number of, with all due respect, average Premier League players, and it remains to be seen whether or not these signings will be enough to keep them up.
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