Alan Shearer still keen on manager job despite NUFC sale plans

Jun 1 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

ALAN Shearer’s desire to become Newcastle United’s permanent manager has not been weakened by confirmation owner Mike Ashley has decided to sell the club.

Ashley has put Newcastle on the market for the second time in a year, this time for just £100m, waivering his right for repayment of the £100m interest-free loan he gave the club to clear its debt two years ago.

Keith Harris, chairman of Seymour Pierce and bankers at NM Rothschild, have been put in charge of finding new owners and Harris is “confident” a buyer can be found, with firm interest already shown from two different consortia.

However, it is believed the most advanced talks have taken place with a foreign-based group which is only willing to pay Ashley – who spent £134m to take control in June 2007 – £80m for a club which is struggling to balance the books following relegation to the Championship.

In the meantime, Shearer’s attempts to become manager have been thwarted, with talks effectively reaching a stalemate at the end of last week.

Shearer has insisted upon strict control of the sale of players and also wants a firm guarantee that he will have a budget of around £20m to spend on new ones regardless of how much is raised through sales.

That has been loosely agreed, although Shearer’s wage demands – thought to be around £2.5m a year – and his assistant Iain Dowie’s have been another stumbling block and the matter has been passed on to the banks who are in charge of the financial restructuring of the club in the Championship.

They are working out whether that package can be incorporated alongside Shearer’s other conditions of employment and the answer may not be known until the end of the week. In the meantime Newcastle are stuck in limbo.