Newcastle United have now placed Sporting Director Dan Ashworth on gardening leave amid major interest from Manchester United.
Ashworth has decided he is leaving the club for good and it’s now just about when and for much he’ll be leaving for, but until then he’ll remain on Newcastle’s books.
A new report from inews is claiming that Ashworth is actually the highest paid director in the Premier League and will still be earning £1.5m a year despite not working for the club.
Ashworth is still a big cost for Newcastle
There’s absolutely no future for Ashworth at Newcastle whatsoever after he decided that he would prefer a move to Man United where he can work with close friend David Brailsford.
However, Newcastle aren’t just going to roll over and let one of their direct rivals in the league take someone who is believed to be one of the best at their jobs in the country for nothing.
The Magpies are believed to be demanding a fee of around £20m for Ashworth’s services and won’t be bullied into lowering that by a bigger club like they perhaps have been in the past.
Should Man United refuse, they can keep the 52-year-old on gardening leave for the next 20 months and prevent him from working at all even if it means continuing to pay his significant wage.
Newcastle acting swift in finding a replacement
The club released a statement yesterday in which they announced that Ashworth has expressed his desire to leave and claimed that the search for his replacement had already begun.
The best thing Newcastle can do now is identify who will be the most suitable candidate to take up this role and continue the work Ashworth had started without too many radical changes.
Most of the work that he was doing was behind the scenes and wouldn’t have impacted the situation on the pitch for another few years, but it is still a big blow to lose someone in the middle of a long-term project.
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