Newcastle United midfielder Sean Longstaff looks set to leave the club this summer, with Leeds United interested. The Magpies’ reasoning for selling him looks even clearer now.
Speculation around the 27-year-old’s future has circulated for the last 12 months and has been heightened even further over the last week due to recent news about approaches from Leeds United.
It was reported that Leeds placed a third bid in for Sean Longstaff, totalling £12million with add-ons. However, Newcastle United rejected Leeds’ bid for Longstaff, with Eddie Howe clearly looking for more from the newly-promoted Premier League team.
After losing his place in the starting XI when Sandro Tonali returned from suspension, it was clear Longstaff was always going to face an uphill battle on Tyneside. Any transfer fee received for the midfielder will count as pure profit due to Longstaff being an academy graduate, and this summer could be the final time they get a good transfer fee for him, as his contract runs out next year.
With Longstaff still set to leave Newcastle this summer, Adam Williams, Geordie Boot Boys‘ Head of Football Finance and Governance Content, explained why the deal makes so much sense ahead of the Magpies’ imminent return to the Champions League.
Sean Longstaff takes part in Newcastle United Pre-season training
Photo by Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images
Sean Longstaff needs to leave Newcastle United for UEFA FFP reasons
The Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) are one thing, but UEFA’s squad cost ratio is a completely different ball game.
UEFA rules state that clubs are not allowed to spend 70% of their annual revenue on player and manager wages, transfers or agent fees. It appears Newcastle could be close to that cap, so selling Longstaff makes sense in this case.
It sounds like Newcastle are looking for £15m for Sean Longstaff,” Williams told Geordie Boot Boys.
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“As an academy graduate, that £15m would be ‘pure profit’ in PSR terms. I’m sure most of us are familiar with what this means by now, but for the uninitiated… profit on player sales for PSR purposes is calculated based on a player’s book value. In turn, his book value is calculated based on his initial transfer fee and years remaining on his contract.
“But as an academy graduate, Newcastle never paid a fee for Longstaff, so whatever they receive for him is pure profit. That means it adds, say, £15m to their bottom line for the financial year, and it’s that bottom line that we use to determine whether or not a club has complied with PSR.
“Things are probably tighter with UEFA PSR (than Premier League PSR). Under the Football Earnings rule, I think they’ll probably be okay for the three-year period up until the end of 2025-26. They can’t use the women’s team loophole here, but it’s not going to come to that. However, the Squad Cost element of the rule is harder to comply with.
“Under this system, you’re not allowed to spend any more than 70 per cent of annual revenue on player and manager wages, transfers and agents’ fees. In terms of how this is relevant to Longstaff, A) it gets his wages off the books and B) the revenue figure in this case includes a three-year average of profit on player sales, so a pure profit sale is good for the calculation.”
Where Newcastle United stand with UEFA FFP amid Sean Longstaff’s exit saga
With Longstaff surely heading for the exit, Newcastle are linked with a move for Atletico Madrid’s Conor Gallagher. The midfielder would cost as little as £36m, and would certainly be a great addition to Howe’s first-team squad.
In the meantime, it appears Newcastle could be treading a fine line with UEFA FFP, so Longstaff is likely to be a casualty, similar to how Elliot Anderson and Yankuba Minteh were sold due to PSR in 2024.
On Newcastle’s current UEFA FFP stance, Williams told Geordie Boot Boys: “It’s hard to work out exactly where Newcastle stand with the Squad Cost test because it’s a calendar-year assessment, not a season-by-season one. Because the accounts work on a season-by-season basis, you have to do a bit of inference to see where they are at with this.
“But for the sake of argument, let’s look at the 2023-24 accounts to get a flavour. Their revenue that season was £320m and their three-year player sale profit average was £26m, so under the current Squad Cost limit for 2025, that would give them a cap of £242m.
“Their wage bill was £219m that year and their player amortisation was £97m. Even with allowable deductions and non-football costs, that would have put them close to or over the limit. The Squad Cost rule was only being phased in that year, so they wouldn’t have been penalised, but UEFA are now punishing clubs who’ve exceeded the limit with fines, as we’ve seen with Villa and Chelsea. They aren’t massive fines, so it’s not something to be overly concerned about, but PIF will be mindful of it.”