The compensation fee that Newcastle received for allowing Dan Ashworth to depart for Manchester United has gone public – and it’s a little more than first reported.
In some surprise breaking news released on Sunday, it was revealed that Ashworth had been let go from his post at Man Utd, only five months after being appointed sporting director at Old Trafford.
He moved to the North East from Brighton & Hove Albion in February 2022 and only spent around 18 months with Newcastle before being snapped up (or ‘tapped up’) by Ineos, Man Utd’s co-owners.
At the time, it was revealed that Newcastle wanted an unprecedented compensation package north of £15m from Man Utd and. Consequently, Ashworth had threatened to take Newcastle to arbitration. However, an out-of-court settlement was agreed in July and he was able to start work.
£5m fee made public
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Following his departure, The Times’ Martin Hardy reports that the figure Red Devils have briefed reporters on – around £2m – is incorrect and the Magpies were in fact paid £5m; over double the amount those in Manchester were suggesting.
He suffered a breakdown in his working relationship with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and it’s thought that a decision was made on Saturday evening to allow him to leave.
Earlier this year, Ratcliffe described the 53-year-old as ‘one of the top sporting directors.’ At the time, the Manchester-born billionaire had also bemoaned Newcastle for supposedly dragging their heels in not letting Ashworth leave his role at St James’ Park, saying it was ‘completely absurd’ for Ashworth to remain on gardening leave for such an extended period.
“One of the biggest issues in football, which I have to say I wasn’t fully prepared for, was the gardening leave issue, which is not something that I bump into in my business world,” Ratcliffe said.
“I see absolutely no point in the gardening leave thing that they have in football. It just makes it difficult to change things with pace because Omar \[Berrada\] is on six months, Dan Ashworth is on one-and-a-half years.
“We had a very sensible conversation with Southampton about Jason Wilcox. We managed to find a solution to that.
“Newcastle are just being very difficult and very awkward about Dan. Until you get the people in, it’s quite difficult to drive the change and it’s just frustrating.”