Yasir Al-Rumayyan has admitted that PIF's purchase of a majority stake in Newcastle United has worked out 'extremely well'.

Winless Newcastle were languishing in the relegation zone when the PIF, Jamie Reuben and former owner Amanda Staveley completed their takeover, in 2021, but the club have since pulled clear of danger, qualified for the Champions League and reached two cup finals following the inspired appointment of Eddie Howe. While Newcastle have required substantial investment, on and off the field, the £305m purchase price has proved a relative bargain.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, for instance, paid £1.3bn just to buy a 27.7% stake in Manchester United while Chelsea's owners spent a whopping £4.25bn to purchase the club. Although Newcastle have a long way to go to reach these eye-watering valuations, Adam Sommerfeld, a managing partner at Certus Capital Partners, who were involved in multiple takeover bids during the Ashley era, previously told ChronicleLive that 'general industry perceptions' values the club at a figure above £800m. That represents an almighty increase as the PIF 'focus on' sport as part of the fund's 'strategy' in Al-Rumayyan's own words.

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"The first thing we did was in football," he said at the FII Institute last week. "We bought Newcastle United and we did extremely well."

Staveley was among those in attendance as Al-Rumayyan spoke at the conference in Miami before visiting Tyneside at the weekend. As Newcastle weigh up whether to transform St James' Park, or to build a new ground not too far away, Al-Rumayyan briefly touched on PIF's 'innovative' approach to stadium design while discussing Saudi Arabia hosting the 2034 World Cup.

"We're building a big number of stadiums," he added. "It's going to be all over the Kingdom between Riyadh, the Eastern area, Neom and Jeddah, and this is a very innovative way of constructing, designing these stadiums."