talkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan has responded after being on the receiving end of criticism from Newcastle United supporters for comments on the club’s financial situation. Jordan has also discussed the situation with rivals Chelsea, who have financial fair play worries of their own.
The Magpies may have to sell a star player this summer, with Alexander Isak a candidate to move away from St James’ Park so as to avoid a points deduction or huge fine from the Premier League. Given the nature of Newcastle’s ownership structure, there has been a lot of discussion around players moving to or from the north east from the Saudi Pro League, with some teams in Saudi Arabia’s top division bankrolled by the country’s Public Investment Fund.
PIF own Newcastle and have invested heavily in the club since taking over from Mike Ashley in 2021. It recently emerged that Chelsea, meanwhile, have sold a hotel at Stamford Bridge to their owners BlueCo for £76 million.
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Jordan has dismissed any notion of hypocrisy on his part when quizzed by talkSPORT host Jim White on whether he has been fair toward Newcastle when discussing the club’s owners and the move Chelsea’s custodians have made with the hotel. “I’ve criticised the Saudis in context as potentially useful idiots for the Premier League in terms of clubs being able to sell what they don’t want to them in the pursuit of getting themselves out of problems and that included,” he said.
“Context is everything. It is much easier to establish a fair market price of a piece of property than it is a fair market price of a player. “Often, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
“If you decide a player is worth £50million because it suits your commercial ends, you really don’t have to stack that up very much. “If you do with a piece of property, you’re going to underpin it a little more substantially. The argument is similar but different.
“Context is everything, I think if you frame the conversation that we were having about the Saudis and how the Saudis are going to rip English football apart and this, that and the other, I think my response at the time was based upon, ‘Hmm, I am not sure I am particularly enamoured with this idea’.”
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