Llambias interview exclusive: NUFC chief speaks out

Feb 11 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

In an exclusive interview with The Journal and Evening Chronicle, Newcastle United managing director Derek Llambias gave an insight into how the club is run and the blunders they have made. Chief sports writer Luke Edwards reports

MIKE Ashley and Derek Llambias did not, and still do not, plan to fail at Newcastle United, but they are suffering because of a failure to plan before they seized control of St James’s Park.

That Ashley and his management team are still paying for the excesses of a previous regime says much about the era of former chairman Freddie Shepherd.

But it also says just as much about the brash and brazen business approach of Ashley. It was only after his takeover had been completed without due diligence that the scale of the mess he inherited became clear.

With loans due from the expansion of St James’s Park, payments to make on players signed two years earlier and saddled with outstanding instalments on other high-earning stars like Damien Duff and Obafemi Martins until 2010, the Newcastle books were in a mess.

The implication from Llambias is that, with credit lines exhausted and with future sponsorship money from adidas and Northern Rock already spent to fund the £16.5m signing of Michael Owen in 2005, Newcastle were on the financial ropes.

It is a powerful message from the boardroom, although Llambias is forced to concede it is also long overdue as he insisted the new regime’s lack of communication had been the biggest single mistake they have made.

Llambias said: “We freely admit we have made mistakes and we put our hands up. But now we’re in a position where Mike is back on board and we’re not selling the club. We apologise and I personally apologise for the miscommunication. We did not deliberately offend anyone.”