With six games of the Premier League season left, Newcastle United find themselves in very clear danger as the Premier League season draws to an end.
The Toon are six, in reality seven, points adrift of safety in the Premier League relegation race, with 17th placed Norwich holding a seven-goal better difference than the Nort East side.
Whilst relegation from the Premier League will bring with it the padding of ‘parachute payments’ from the Premier League to the sum of £24 (although this is likely to increase this year), Newcastle could be left counting the cost elsewhere report the Irish Independent website independent.ie.
The Irish Independent say that Newcastle, should they drop into the Championship, “will face paying huge salaries” as they didn’t “insert relegation clauses” into the contracts of newly signed players as they fight the drop for a second successive season.
Over the last two transfer windows, the Magpies have spent around £80m, with January arrivals Jonjo Shelvey, a £12m capture from Swansea and Andros Townsend, a £12m signing from Tottenham accounting for £24m of that.
Shelvey, who has already admitted to friends that he will stay at St James’ Park should Newcastle be relegated this season, is one of those thought to have been “handed lucrative wage deals” and who “are understood to have no relegation clause in their contracts.”
The Mirror report that Townsend has an £8m relegation release clause inserted into his contract when the 24-year-old moved from Tottenham to the Magpies, then further say that “sources close to the player say there is no suggestion he will push to leave Newcastle if they are relegated.”
Should both £12m players stay on the books at Newcastle, indeed if other big earners without wage-related relegation clauses in their contracts decide to stay, there could be a lot of well-paid stars plying their trade in next year’s second tier of English football. Shelvey is said to be on around £80,000-a-week at Newcastle with the same source, the Telegraph, saying that, “it is understood none of the players signed in January will take an automatic wage cut in the Championship,” with that also including £55,000-a-week France international Moussa Sissoko.
