Caulkin's piece in full...
The story of Newcastle United’s summer is a story of stasis and, as things stand, there will not be a happy ending, not as far as Rafa Benítez is concerned. With nine days to go until the manager’s contract ends at St James’ Park, talks about an extension have stalled and China is beckoning, offering money (lots of it), and a different sort of challenge. Benítez has one hand on the exit and trust has already left the building.
Nine days more, but it feels too late. As The Times reported earlier this week, Dalian Yifang head a list of Chinese Super League clubs seeking to negotiate with Benítez once his deal expires, prepared to offer him a £12 million salary. For them, the attraction is clear: a Champions League-winning manager available without compensation. For him, it is about impatience and narrowing options.
The backdrop to this story is both simple and complicated, featuring a dysfunctional club with its baffling owner, one of the best, most ambitious coaches of his generation, fractured relationships and a tortuous takeover saga that has delayed and disrupted everything. Once again, Newcastle find themselves on a precipice and, once again, nobody has pushed them there. They teeter and wobble, much of it their own doing.
Even with that context, it seems incomprehensible that Newcastle could have reached this point. Three years on from his arrival on Tyneside, when he spoke about an ailing club’s history and stature, Benítez is adored by supporters, hauling an honest team back from the Sky Bet Championship at the first attempt and then, with minimal investment, twice keeping them in the Premier League.
The Spaniard has never sought to leave. Quite the opposite. He has forged a deep connection with the city in a manner reminiscent of his time at Liverpool, where he won the European Cup and where his family are still based. All he has pushed for is a chance, to compete with clubs in the upper half of the Premier League, if not in terms of spending, then in ambition, speed of movement, growth of infrastructure. “We must do things right,” has become his mantra.
The club will say they have been attempting to tie Benítez down for the past 18 months with no success. They will certainly maintain that they want him to stay. Yet their initial approach came when the 59-year-old was fretting about the arrival of new players, adding to his frustration about the club’s priorities, about their approach to the transfer market, rather than soothing them. And talks since then have been haphazard.
When Benítez met Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director, in London in the week after the end of the season, there was some optimism about a compromise being reached. A one-year extension appeared the most practical solution, giving Benítez an early get-out if the club failed to deliver and giving Ashley and Charnley some breathing space and then a chance to re-negotiate.
Progress since then has been interminable and when an offer came — one year, on the same £6 million annual wage and with none of the structural improvements Benítez had originally asked for — it did not feel like a breakthrough. Benítez is already paid a lot, but he has spent three prime years at a club allergic to its own potential and if they are not prepared to invest in other areas, surely his obsessive efforts to improve the team could be rewarded? Is that not the easy bit?
But this is Newcastle and nothing is easy. The Sun’s front page exclusive on May 27 — “Toon £350m Sheikh-Up” — revealing that Ashley had “agreed to sell” Newcastle to Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan prompted euphoria on Gallowgate. Perhaps Ashley’s 12 years of negligence, contentious decisions, two relegations, and a drip-drip of corrosion to the club’s soul was about to end. Perhaps.
The complexities of Newcastle’s “takeover” are dense, but almost a month on from the Bin Zayed Group’s emergence, the club remains in Ashley’s hands. No exclusivity agreement has been signed and at least two other bidders, one of which is known to The Times, claim to be in the running, and at varying stages of progress. Discussions are being handled by Justin Barnes, Ashley’s Sports Direct fixer.
Newcastle have officially been up for sale since October 2017, since when both Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners and Peter Kenyon, the former Manchester United and Chelsea director, have led attempts to buy it. It is the third time that Ashley has tried to jettison the club he bought for £135 million in 2007, although sources close to the process insist that it is different now, that his desire to sell is genuine.
With bidders being played off against each other, with the details of moving money around, studying accounts and ticking administrative boxes dragging on, Benítez has been caught in the middle, on the one hand told by Charnley that it is business as usual this summer and on the other believing that it is anything but. He has asked for clarity and none has been forthcoming, in part because nobody really understands what will happen next.
None of it has been authoritative and the clock is ticking down. How can he commit to something — anything — so uncertain? Could he not wait, see how things develop and, if the worst happens, hang around until sacking season this autumn and have his pick of jobs? Definitely, but he is proud and stubborn, too, and he is sick of waiting, unconvinced by what he has heard, whether from Charnley or anybody else.
In any case, Dalian want him now. Backed by Wang Jianlin, the fourth richest man in China and worth £17.2 billion according to Forbes, they are 11th in the Super League and although Benítez has previously been dismissive about moving to the Far East, wanting to stay within touching distance of Merseyside, his wife and daughters, the landscape has changed. There are no openings in the Premier League and Newcastle are a lost cause.
Or are they? Even now, at this late, late juncture, could the impasse not break? Could there be an end to the logjam surrounding Newcastle’s future ownership? Could Ashley not, on a whim, lavish Benítez with praise or money or possibilities? At this most impenetrable of clubs, which has offered no public comment on Benítez’s position, nothing is impossible, but time is the biggest villain of all and time is almost up.
The next week or so may feel like forever. Benítez’s contract protects him from dismissal, to the tune of £6 million, right until the final day, but if Ashley, the retailer famed for his maverick streak, is waiting for his manager to blink first, then dismay will follow hard. It is the end game now and although this could still be the summer when Ashley finally leaves, for some overdue positivity at Newcastle, there may be a hefty price to pay. Benítez is going, going and almost gone.
