· 27 May 2025, 17:30
**Newcastle United begin the process once again of finding a sporting director to guide the club as Paul Mitchell is set to depart at the end of June, almost 12 months to the day since he joined.**
This will mean Newcastle will move on to their third sporting director since the PIF-backed takeover after tiny Dan Ashworth snaked off behind our backs to join Manchester United in a move that proved to be a big mistake.
Paul Mitchell came in last summer, caused chaos behind the scenes and has done very little in the 12 months since he came in.
We had high hopes for Mitchell given his pedigree, but clearly it was a bad fit. He and Eddie Howe initially struggled to worth together, but they did sort their differences and everything was looking good until this bombshell announcement.
> [](https://twitter.com/NUFC/status/1927335110984052842)
Newcastle's transfer plans will not be affected by Mitchell's departure
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It comes just a couple of days after Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell met with representatives from the PIF about summer transfer business, which suggests that something came up in that meeting that has made it impossible for Newcastle and Mitchell to continue to work together.
However, [The Chronicle](https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/sport-opinion/truth-eddie-howes-newcastle-united-31733282) have been quick to report that there was no rift between Mitchell and Howe, but they do say there's every possibility that something could have happened in the meeting that made Mitchell's position untenable.
They also go on to suggest that it will not disrupt Newcastle's transfer plans with Eddie Howe set to take charge of recruitment again, which, given he signed the likes of Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak, Sven Botman and Sandro Tonali, is probably a good thing.
Should Newcastle scrap the director of football model?
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As well as summer business, the club needs to seriously consider what to do going forward. Do they abandon the director of football model and reshuffle things to do without it, or is it back to Indeed to find another one?
It may actually be worth waiting this out to see how Eddie Howe gets on this summer, and also, waiting until we have Darren Eales' replacement in as CEO before we bring in such another important figure.
We are bound to hear plenty of stories from 'sources' behind the scenes as to what has gone on, it's just a case of seeing which are plausible, but it's going to be interesting to see the fallout from this.