Amanda Staveley reveals intriguing Newcastle United multi-club model plans

Newcastle United co-owner Amanda Staveley has revealed that she is a fan of multi-club ownership models and that the search is ongoing to add clubs to their current structure. Clubs falling into a multi-club ownership structure have increased exponentially in recent times with the City Football Group, who have Manchester City, Girona, Troyes, Melbourne City and New York City FC among their 13-strong cohort of clubs, among the sport’s leaders of this trend.

A multi-club structure can help clubs to create an identity across numerous clubs in different countries and regions and help them to sign, grow and nurture talent under one umbrella. Whilst Newcastle United have yet to follow suit, co-owner Amanda Staveley has admitted that they are searching for potential clubs and that they will likely join the trend.

Speaking at the Bloomberg Power Players' summit, Staveley said: "We very much are [looking at multi-club model]. Multi-club is part of football. It's a real benefit to be able to have players and train players that aren't part of your squad.

"The UEFA rules are changing so we have to see what emerges. The dynamics around whether we could have a club has changed dramatically over the last year.

"I'm still a very big fan of the multi-club model. A lot of other competitors and friends in the Premier League have multi-club relationships, but it has to be considered as a whole.

"We have looked at Belgium, we have looked at a lot of European markets. We have looked in Asia, Australia, Brazil - pretty much everywhere. We have looked at every market to see and getting players through our academy system and through that multi-club model would be very helpful in terms of allowing us to buy and have players part of our journey earlier on."

City’s multi-club model has recently come under the spotlight with reports they are set to sign winger Savio from Girona. Savio is only on-loan at the surprise La Liga title contenders having joined them from Ligue 2 side - and fellow City Football Group club - Troyes despite never having played a game for the French outfit. Newcastle United, meanwhile, have seen the Premier League clubs vote on whether to ban loan moves between clubs who share the same owners, however, that motion did not pass the fourteen vote threshold required.