England World Cup 2022 squad guide: Full fixtures, group, ones to watch, odds and more

 

Can Harry Kane lead England to World Cup success? (REUTERS)

Expectations are high, and hopes even higher, that England can pull off another superb run at a major tournament after reaching the semi-finals of the 2018 World Cup and the final of Euro 2020. Manager Gareth Southgate has instilled a confidence in his squad which has brought a belief that England can finally win the World Cup again. That confidence is also reflected in the betting markets with the Three Lions third favourites to lift the trophy behind Brazil and France.

Yet faith in Southgate and his squad is not as strong as it was after England stumbled through this year’s Nations League campaign. No wins in six games with two defeats to Hungary and relegation from League A has put a sour note on Southgate’s time in charge and sends England heading into this important World Cup campaign on rocky footing. The pressure to perform well has increased and the manager’s decision-making, on and off the field, will be more firmly under the spotlight.

No more so than when he names the 26-man squad he will be taking to Qatar. Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling are dead certs and will be hoping to replicate their form from the past two tournaments with Jordan Pickford also secure of a starting place in goal. Jude Bellingham is pushing to tie down a starting berth but the question of where Phil Foden’s best position in the team is hasn’t been answered. Calls to start Trent Alexander-Arnold at right-back have gone unheeded with Reece James and Kyle Walker preferred and the England boss has stuck with Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw despite their limited playing time with Manchester United.

Going in England’s favour is the group they’ve been drawn in. The expectation is that the Three Lions will win Group B featuring Iran, USA, and Wales – although Scotland proved at the Euros that Home Nations matches at major tournaments can be challenging. Things get trickier in the knockout rounds, and should England top the group they’ll likely face the African champions, Senegal, in the last-16 before a possible clash with current World champions France in the quarters. Belgium and Portugal are potential semi-final contenders before one of Spain, Germany, or Brazil await in the final, probably. It looks set to be the most difficult run England have had so far under Southgate but if they get through it, they’ll have guaranteed their spots in history.

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Here is everything you need to know:

Can Gareth Southgate take England on another memorable World Cup run? (Action Images via Reuters)

Group fixtures (all times GMT)

Monday 21 November: England vs Iran – 13:00

Friday 25 November: England vs USA – 19:00

Tuesday 29 November: Wales vs England – 19:00

Predicted squad

Goalkeepers: Jordan Pickford (Everton), Aaron Ramsdale (Arsenal), Nick Pope (Newcastle)

Defenders: Ben Chilwell (Chelsea), Eric Dier (Tottenham), Marc Guéhi (Crystal Palace), Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Harry Maguire (Manchester United), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), John Stones (Manchester City), Fikayo Tomori (AC Milan), Kieran Trippier (Newcastle), Kyle Walker (Manchester City)

Midfielders: Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Mason Mount (Chelsea), Kalvin Phillips (Manchester City), Declan Rice (West Ham United), James Ward-Prowse (Southampton)

Forwards: Tammy Abraham (Roma), Phil Foden (Manchester City), Jack Grealish (Manchester City), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Raheem Sterling (Chelsea)

Ones to watch

Star – Harry Kane: England’s captain and main striker, Kane won the golden boot in the last World Cup and is guaranteed his spot in the starting XI. He’s hitting form at the right time scoring close to a goal per game for Tottenham in the Premier League this season. The 29-year-old can also drop deep and pick out passes through the lines for his speedier teammates which will prove useful against strong defences.

Teenager Jude Bellingham hopes to thrive in England’s midfield (The FA via Getty Images)

Breakout talent – Jude Bellingham: The question was whether Gareth Southgate would give him enough minutes to show off his talent at the World Cup but England’s recent 3-3 draw with Germany changed that. At 2-0 down 19-year-old Bellingham took control of midfield and launched the Three Lions into a counter assault. He broke up play, made runs into the box, slipped in quaint through balls and won a penalty, all but nailing down a spot in the starting XI in the process. Add on that Bellingham is only the third teenager to score in four consecutive Champions League appearances after Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé and England have got themselves a real talent.

Odds to win the World Cup (taken from Betfair)

13/2

Prediction

England should have enough quality and depth in their squad to breeze through the group stages with Wales, buoyed by reaching the World Cup for the first time in 64 years and motivated by inspiring speeches from Michael Sheen, the biggest threat. Results elsewhere may give England an easier route to the latter stages of the tournament but if things fall out as predicted getting past the quarterfinals will be good going for Gareth Southgate’s side. Knocked out in the quarter/semi-finals.

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Traits that made Cristiano Ronaldo great now hasten his painful decline

 

Cristiano Ronaldo trained alone on Friday. In a way it was the perfect image: a footballer who perhaps more than any other embodies the trope of the individual superstar, the idea that one man can do it on his own, doing it on his own. The television cameras were there to film his arrival and they were there a few hours later to film Erik ten Hag as he weathered a squall of Cristiano-related questions. The soap opera continues. But for now the football career is on hold.

Ronaldo will not feature for Manchester United against Chelsea on Saturday afternoon. He has been suspended for storming down the tunnel after refusing to come on as a substitute against Tottenham on Wednesday. The word is that United will again try to move him on in the January transfer window, and may even pay him to leave.

Perhaps we should have known that this was how it would end from the moment Ronaldo returned last autumn in a blizzard of ticker-tape and social media numbers. But nobody involved – not United, and certainly not Ronaldo himself – was prepared to shake themselves from a shared reverie that would disintegrate upon its first contact with reality.

Fans gather by the huge banner on the front of Old Trafford to celebrate the return of Cristiano Ronaldo before before his return match against Newcastle United in September 2021. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

For United, it was a reality borne out in results and dysfunction. For Ronaldo himself, reality has taken the form of time. The fact that he is 37 years of age is no barrier in itself: Thiago Silva is still turning out for Chelsea at 38, Fabio Quagliarella and Pepe are doing it at 39 for Sampdoria and Porto respectively, Joaquín is pounding up and down the wing for Real Betis at the age of 41. Ronaldo remains in excellent physical shape, and as he proved against Everton a fortnight ago, there are still few deadlier finishers. He ended last season with six goals in five appearances.

But what has changed is the game around him: a sport in which players are covering ever greater distances, at an ever higher intensity, to an ever more intricate and complex series of technical instructions. What has changed is the concept that one player, however talented or driven, can be given free rein or have a team built around him. The very principles upon which Ronaldo built not just his game but his fame, not just his career but his entire psyche, are eroding in front of his eyes.

What must this feel like? How is Ronaldo experiencing the world right now? In part these are questions that are impossible to answer, and so for various reasons people have stopped bothering to try. Far easier to paint him in broad primary colours, as either a cartoon villain or a vengeful demigod, to reduce his human complexity to numbers, his human emotions to ciphers. Fans who just months ago hailed his second coming as the second coming are now urging United to sweep him aside, to cast him adrift.

In April, Ronaldo and his partner Georgina Rodríguez lost their newborn son in childbirth. He was one of twins; their daughter survived. Rodríguez would later describe this tragedy as “the worst moment of her life”. For Ronaldo it was “the greatest sadness”. In the subsequent days the world of football rallied around Ronaldo at this most awful of times. Then, as the world of football is wont to do, it moved on to other things.

Did Ronaldo move on to other things? Nobody on the outside can say with any great certainty how this tragedy might have affected him. Every family processes grief in its own way. But anybody who has lost a child will tell you that it is a life-changing moment: a sadness that defies words or solace, whose vapour trail is felt not simply for weeks or months but for years, and for ever.

Fans at Anfield applaud on the seventh minute for Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo and his family in April following the death of his newborn son. Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA

Again, nobody here has a direct portal into Ronaldo’s brain, and ultimately we must all bear responsibility for our own actions. But I suppose the point here is that if one were to cast judgment on a man making a seemingly irrational emotional outburst – say, on the touchline during a televised football game – might this be the sort of thing you would want to take into account? If only a little, if only for reasons of simple compassion? Or is six months beyond the statute of limitations for these things?

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And then of course you can throw in the sense of athletic decline, which is often described as a form of sporting death, a brutal reacquaintance with one’s own mortality. For Ronaldo it is reasonable to presume that this reckoning will hit him harder than most, given the peaks he scaled and the levels of self-belief required to sustain them. Ronaldo will never be remotely as good at anything else as he is at football. Now, with decades of life to live, this thing is slipping away from him.

Cristiano Ronaldo looks on as he warms up on the touchline in Manchester United’s victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Photograph: Matt West/Shutterstock

United knew this, or at least should have done. Instead, they chose to sink more than £60m in fees and wages into a 36-year-old striker with seemingly no idea of what their exit strategy might be. In a way both United and Ronaldo were happy to indulge in the same delusion: that the good times would simply keep on rolling, that reality could simply be wished away through branding, star magnetism and sheer will. It was the ultimate marriage: a company convinced of its own immortal pre -eminence and a player convinced of his.

But of course companies can pivot, remake and reinvent themselves. Humans are stuck with the body they have. Even now, there are choices to be made. Ronaldo could simply knuckle down, take his medicine, accept a diminished role in an evolving team, acknowledge his limits. But to do so would be to go against every trait and instinct that drove him to the top in the first place. And so as United forge ahead, Ronaldo simply waits: alone, imprisoned by time, quietly going the way of all flesh.

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Ballon d'Or: Karim Benzema wins award as best player in world football for first time

 

Real Madrid and France forward Karim Benzema has won the Ballon d'Or - awarded to the best footballer of the year - for the first time.

Benzema scored 44 goals in 46 games as he helped Real win the Champions League and La Liga in 2021-22.

Lionel Messi (seven) and Cristiano Ronaldo (five) had won the award on 12 of the previous 13 occasions.

Bayern Munich's Sadio Mane, who was at Liverpool in 2021-22, was second ahead of Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne.

Barcelona's Alexia Putellas retained the Women's Ballon d'Or, awarded to the best best female footballer of 2022.

England Euro 2022 winner and Arsenal forward Beth Mead was second.

Premier League champions Manchester City, who had six nominees at the ceremony, were awarded Club of the Year ahead of Liverpool.

The Ballon d'Or is awarded to the best footballer of the year, based on performance over the 2021-22 season.

Zinedine Zidane (right) was the last Frenchman to win the Ballon d'Or First Frenchman to win prize since 1998

Monday's ceremony in Paris saw French F1 driver Esteban Ocon arrive at the Theatre du Chatelet with the Ballon d'Or trophy in a racing car.

Benzema is the first Frenchman to win the prestigious award since Zinedine Zidane in 1998. Zidane was at the event to present his countryman with the prize.

"This prize in front of me makes me really proud," said Benzema. "When I was small, it was a childhood dream, I never gave up. Anything is possible.

"I'm really proud of my journey here. It wasn't easy, it was a difficult time for my family as well."

Benzema was the overwhelming favourite to win this year's award.

His 44 goals included a hat-trick in 17 second-half minutes against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, and another away to Chelsea in the quarter-final first leg.

He also scored three more goals over two legs of the semi-final against Manchester City.

The 34-year-old, who has been at Real Madrid since 2009, is expected to play a key role for France at the World Cup in Qatar which starts on 20 November.

The Ballon d'Or is voted for by 100 journalists from around the world.

Warm reception for Haller

Borussia Dortmund's former West Ham striker Sebastien Haller, who has recently undergone chemotherapy for a testicular tumour, received warm applause from the audience when he walked on stage to present the Yashin Trophy to Real Madrid's Thibaut Courtois for best goalkeeper.

Liverpool's Alisson was second, with Ederson of Manchester City and Chelsea's Edouard Mendy third and fourth respectively. Tottenham's Hugo Lloris was 10th.

The Kopa Trophy, awarded to the best performing player under the age of 21, went to Barcelona and Spain midfielder Gavi, who turned 18 in August.

Sebastien Haller on stage at the Ballon d'Or awards ceremony

Borussia Dortmund midfielder Jude Bellingham, 19, was ranked fourth and England team-mate and Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka, 21, was eighth.

Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski won the Gerd Muller Trophy awarded to the best striker after scoring 57 goals for Bayern Munich and Poland in 2021-22.

The inaugural Socrates Award, a humanitarian prize, went to Mane for his charity work.

Five-time winner Ronaldo ranked 20th

Messi and Ronaldo have dominated the award in recent years, apart from in 2018 when Croatia midfielder Luka Modric won it.

Messi had already won the trophy more times than any other player and his seventh success in 2021 came after wins in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2019.

However, he was not nominated this time after an underwhelming first season at Paris St-Germain.

Manchester United's Ronaldo, who last won it in 2017, was placed 20th of the 30 players nominated, the Portuguese's lowest Ballon d'Or ranking since 2005.

Ballon d'Or results

1. Karim Benzema (Real Madrid, France).

2. Sadio Mane (Bayern Munich, Senegal).

3. Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City, Belgium).

4. Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona, Poland).

5. Mohamed Salah (Liverpool, Egypt).

6. Kylian Mbappe (Paris St-Germain, France).

7. Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid, Belgium).

8. Vinicius Junior (Real Madrid, Brazil).

9. Luka Modric (Real Madrid, Croatia).

10. Erling Haaland (Manchester City, Norway).

11. Son Heung-min (Tottenham Hotspur, South Korea)

12. Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City, Algeria).

13. Sebastien Haller (Borussia Dortmund, Ivory Coast).

14. Fabinho (Liverpool, Brazil) tied with Rafael Leao (AC Milan, Portugal).

16. Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool, Netherlands).

17. Luis Diaz (Liverpool, Colombia) tied with Dusan Vlahovic (Juventus, Serbia) and Casemiro (Manchester United, Brazil).

20. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United, Portugal).

21. Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur, England).

22. Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool, England) tied with Phil Foden (Manchester City, England) and Bernardo Silva (Manchester City, Portugal).

25. Joao Cancelo (Manchester City, Portugal) tied with Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich, Germany), Mike Maignan (AC Milan, France), Antonio Rudiger (Real Madrid, Germany), Darwin Nunez (Liverpool, Uruguay) and Christopher Nkunku (RB Leipzig, France).

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Hasenhuttl accepts importance of midweek clash with rivals AFC Bournemouth

 

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl during the Premier League match between Southampton and West Ham at St Mary's Stadium. Photo by Stuart Martin..

RALPH Hasenhuttl accepted the importance of Wednesday’s clash with AFC Bournemouth but insisted he retains “all the belief” in what Saints are doing.

The St Mary’s side visit the Vitality Stadium five points behind their fellow south-coast Premier League rivals after 10 matches.

Bournemouth, first managed by Scott Parker before Gary O’Neil took over on an interim basis, were firm favourites for relegation before the season began.

They were defeated 9-0 by Liverpool but are the only team in the division to remain unbeaten since, despite a difficult summer of recruitment and many feeling they have a weaker squad.

Saints, who are in the bottom three with eight points, must start picking up victories and crucially against teams they are likely to be competing with come the end of the season.

"For us, it's a Premier League game and an important one,” Hasenhuttl said, asked if there is any added incentive given the locality and shared objectives of the clubs.

“We go there and I think we know that they are in good shape at the moment, but we go there like we have always gone into in the past with all the belief in what we are doing to make it a good evening for us.”

The meeting comes off the back of a 1-1 draw with West Ham United, at St Mary’s, that ended a run of four straight defeats in the Premier League for Hasenhuttl and Saints.

It could have been a first win since the August victory over Chelsea, after Romain Perraud put Saints ahead and Che Adams squandered two big chances.

"For everybody it is very frustrating because these are the moments where you can make a big step forward,” Hasenhuttl admitted.

“But it would still be a long way to go. There's no guarantee that you win games but it makes it a little bit easier. And then you can definitely play a little bit calmer but we are never in the situation."

He added: "Let's say every point we get is a point gained and we know that we need every point.

“We are now going to Bournemouth and then against Arsenal so another two games this week. We have to be ready for the Wednesday game, immediately focus is on the game and hopefully we can get a win there."

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When Ronaldo joined Inter from Barcelona and tore Serie A to shreds

It’s 8 June 1997 in Lyon, where Italy and Brazil are preparing to square off in Le Tournoi for their first meeting since the World Cup final three years earlier. Italy coach Cesare Maldini walks over to Fabio Cannavaro and says: “Fabio, we’ll see if this Ronaldo truly is a phenomenon.” By the end of a pulsating 3-3 draw, Ronaldo has scored and tormented both Cannavaro and Paolo Maldini. Cannavaro returns to his manager and tells him that the young Brazilian is indeed the real deal, to which Maldini replies: “Yes Fabio, you are right.”

Ronaldo joined Inter six weeks later. According to former Inter president Massimo Moratti, the idea of signing Ronaldo occurred after a drab, goalless draw at Fiorentina three months earlier. Moratti supposedly concocted the plan in the back of a Florentine taxi. And true to his word, he delivered, exploiting rising tensions between Ronaldo and Barcelona to activate the Brazilian’s buyout clause. The transfer sent a wave of excitement through Italian football not seen since the summer Diego Maradona joined Napoli 13 years earlier.

The revisionist narrative surrounding Ronaldo’s career is that the year in Barcelona was the pinnacle of his career. According to the statistics, this is true. The fact he rifled in 47 goals in 49 games in all competitions, including the wonder goal against Compostela in October 1996, where he swatted away defenders with such outrageous ease, reinforces the narrative.

Yet his true peak came in his first season at Inter, where this perfectly assembled force of nature destroyed everything in his path. Rampaging through La Liga was one thing, but doing it in Serie A – by far and away the greatest league in the world (and with 1997-98 perhaps the strongest single season the sport has ever seen) – was quite another.

Bobby Robson, José Mourinho and Ronaldo celebrate winning the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1997. Photograph: Colorsport/Shutterstock

Serie A had been home to the world’s best players and the game’s most feared strikers for years. Italy’s grizzled defenders were used to locking horns with great foreign players, but they weren’t quite ready for Ronaldo. If Maradona possessed dribbling genius, Zinedine Zidane the ethereal technique and Marco van Basten, Gabriel Batistuta and George Weah raw physicality and pace sprinkled with a dash of elegance, Ronaldo was an intoxicating cocktail of them all. A PlayStation footballer come to life.

Ronaldo’s highly anticipated debut was upended by Álvaro Recoba, who scored two howitzers in the space of five minutes to overcome Brescia. The second match of the season saw Inter travel to face Bologna in a game billed as “Ronaldo v Baggio”, a battle between the game’s two premier players for a large stretch of the decade. The game at the rain-drenched Stadio Dall’ara was an instant classic, with Baggio scoring two and Inter scoring four. Ronaldo got off the mark, twisting Bologna defender Massimo Paganin like a pretzel on the edge of the box with a right foot shimmy before planting the ball into the bottom corner with his left.

“Ronaldo? Mamma mia! What a player,” reflected Baggio in 2021. “He came from the future. He played football with technique and speed ahead of his time. I saw him do things that were unthinkable, which no one had done or thought of until then. He was unique.”

Ronaldo scored six in his next seven games, including a mesmeric performance against Parma in October. He danced and glided his way past players at will, even crashing a free-kick past Gianluigi Buffon from 25 yards out that clipped the underside of the crossbar. By Christmas, he had nine goals in 13 games.

“He was an alien among humans,” said Buffon. “It seemed like he was created in a lab. He was the perfect player, as he had power, speed, intuition, technical skills and quickness.” That was the beauty of the first Ronaldo. He could do everything: he took penalties, free-kicks and even corners in his first season at Inter; he would pick up the ball near the halfway line and dribble past as many players dared stand in his way.

Ronaldo and Inter suffered a bit of a dip following the 1-0 win against Juventus in early 1998, dropping 10 points in January and February. His one and only league hat-trick came in the 5-0 demolition of Lecce in the middle of this sticky patch.

Ronaldo has his boots polished after scoring in the Uefa Cup final. Photograph: John Sibley/Action Images/Reuters

If you want a snapshot of just how good Ronaldo was during his golden period at Inter, his performance against Spartak Moscow in the second leg of their Uefa Cup semi-final is the perfect distillation of a player operating in a different orbit. Describing the pitch at the old Dynamo Stadium as a potato field would be an affront to potato fields the world over. Even though the surface was laced with ice and snow, the game was inexplicably allowed to go ahead. It made little difference to Ronaldo.

He scored twice and his second was spectacular. Like his goals against Sampdoria, Lecce and Schalke, Ronaldo collected the ball from deep. He spun on a dime, ran deep into the heart of the defence and passed to Iván Zamorano, who squeezed the ball back to Ronaldo, who danced through two defenders with a single touch, rounded the goalkeeper and slotted the ball home, while effectively playing on an ice rink. “Straordinario” shouted legendary Rai commentator Bruno Pizzul.

The season had been building to the titanic clash between Inter and Juventus at the end of April. The most important Derby d’Italia in years, with only a point separating them, was essentially stripped down to a battle between Ronaldo and Alessandro Del Piero, the two best players in the world. They had been upstaging one another all season, forcing the other to raise the stakes even higher. “When you arrived at Inter you were already in my head, and you inspired me to become better,” said Del Piero to Ronaldo in 2020. Ronaldo had scored 22 in 28 Serie A games and had dominated the Uefa Cup; Del Piero had 20 in 30 games and had dominated the Champions League. Whoever won the game would win the title.

The game now lives in infamy, a tale of two penalties: one denied to Inter and one given to Juventus just 15 seconds later. The controversy went right to the top, with Italian politicians even debating the decision – and fighting over it in parliament. But the truth is that Ronaldo had missed several chances before Mark Iuliano sent him tumbling in the box. The story of the game was of missed chances rather than a penalty not given. The 1-0 defeat took the wind out of Inter’s sails and, with the league mathematically gone following a surprise defeat to Bari in early May, the focus now became the Uefa Cup final against Lazio in Paris.

Ronaldo stole the show. “I have watched that game on video so many times since then, trying to work out what I did wrong,” recalled Alessandro Nesta. “We lost 3-0, but I don’t think it was my fault. Ronaldo was simply unstoppable. He is so quick he makes everyone else look as if they are standing still.” Nesta, one of the most elegant defenders Italy ever produced and a player who shackled Lionel Messi at the age of 36, could do little to stop Ronaldo at 22.

The Brazilian produced the most complete performance of his career, toying with Lazio for 90 minutes. Javier Zanetti and Zamorano had already scored before Ronaldo sprung Lazio’s offside trap in the 69th minute to utterly bamboozle the hapless Luca Marchegiani, putting the goalkeeper on the floor without so much as touching the ball before stroking it into the empty net.

Ronaldo lifts the Uefa Cup in 1998. Photograph: Kolvenbach

“It was incredible, but he did tricks like that in every training session,” recalled Youri Djorkaeff. “We were used to it. Ronaldo was phenomenal. He proved that he was a cut above the rest that season.” It became one of the defining goals of the 1990s, confirmation that Ronaldo was a 21st-century footballer playing in the dying embers of the 20th.

Ronaldo would end the 1997-98 season with 34 goals in all competitions, 25 in Serie A. He had torn the most unrelenting league the world has ever seen to shreds. “My toughest opponents would be Maradona, Ronaldo, who was phenomenal in his two years at Inter, and Zidane,” said Maldini when asked by La Gazzetta dello Sport to name the players who gave him the hardest time in his 24-year career. “Ronaldo was the only player who really stirred fear in me. Just walking on the same pitch as he did was terrifying for me,” wrote Cannavaro in 2018.

Inter did not win the Scudetto, but going into France 98 there was no doubting Ronaldo was the finest footballer on planet Earth. Everything seemed to be there for the taking and most assumed that he would only get better. Yet, just two months after his Uefa Cup zenith in Paris, the same city bore witness to the beginning of the end of peak Ronaldo, and he was never the same. The human knee simply wasn’t built for that level of contorting, pulling and pushing – not on a frame as muscular as Ronaldo’s and at such devastating speed.

But, if you were fortunate enough to witness it, Ronaldo was special in 1997-98. The ultimate cheat code player. Il Fenomeno.

This article first appeared on The Gentleman UltraFollow Emmet Gates and The Gentleman Ultra on Twitter

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Yasir Al-Rumayyan explains Newcastle United takeover decision as Chelsea growth plan emerges

Newcastle United chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan admits his aim is to help the Magpies become as valuable as Premier League heavyweights such as Chelsea after snubbing other clubs in favour of purchasing the north east outfit. The Governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) gave an in-depth interview in his native Saudi Arabia on Monday, where he outlined the reasoning behind the Newcastle takeover almost one year ago to the day.

It is no secret Saudi's sovereign wealth fund could have purchased almost any football club in the world, with Al-Rumayyan admitting different offers arose before Mike Ashley's project landed in his lap. However, with bigger outfits demanding huge amounts of capital for a minority stake and limited control, the Toon chairman admits buying 80 per cent of Newcastle made more financial sense to the Investment Fund.

Speaking to Radio Eight, Al-Rumayyan said: "Why did we choose the English Premier League? Because it is the greatest league that exists in the world. No other league competes with it. Any team from the 20 can beat the strongest team.

"Before Newcastle we had offers from Italy, France and also the UK. One UK club offered us 30 per cent for £700m and without any management.

TAKE PART IN OUR BIG TAKEOVER SURVEY: We want to hear your thoughts ahead of the NUFC takeover anniversary

"Amanda Staveley brought Newcastle to us and said 'we like it so much, we would like it to be with you'. The Reuben family came and said 'we would like to be partners in the investment'. So they have skin in the game.

"We bought the team for £350m, compared to 30 per cent [of the unnamed club] which is £700m. Then you have Chelsea who sold for £3.5bn. So my aim now is to make Newcastle go from £350m to £3.5bn, that's 10 times the money. If we had bought Chelsea, for example, how much would it bring us in profit?"

Al-Rumayyan has attended Newcastle matches at St James' Park since joining the boardroom on Tyneside last October and has clearly been taken in by the passionate support of the Geordie faithful.

"Newcastle United is the only club present in one city, meaning there is no bigger club than Newcastle," he added. "There are one million in the area and they are all present. We have 52,000 seats in the stadium and tickets are always sold out."

Friday marks 12 months to the day since the Saudi takeover was given the green light by the Premier League after months of uncertainty. Newcastle take on Brentford this weekend, with Wor Flags and the club expected to mark the occasion before the St James' Park clash.

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