Newcastle are back in the Champions League. It changes everything

New York Times

26-05-2025

Have Newcastle United ever celebrated a defeat like this? On the final day of a transformative season, the team lost but the club won, qualifying for the Champions League by the skinniest of margins. For once, they were done a favour by Manchester United, whose victory over Aston Villa made the scoreline against Everton at St James' Park irrelevant, although the ramifications will be anything but.
Advertisement
After an epic campaign — 'monumental,' head coach Eddie Howe called it — Newcastle made it an appropriately drawn-out finale, playing poorly and losing 1-0 and then being forced to wait for the full-time whistle to go at Old Trafford.
'We didn't know the scores at all,' Dan Burn said of results elsewhere. 'Especially when I kept seeing Fabby (fellow centre-back Fabian Schar) up front, shooting. Someone might have let us know…'
Only then could the party begin.
Players and staff huddled together in the middle of the pitch and danced. They were then joined by family and loved ones for a long, slow, luxurious lap of appreciation.
Howe did not quite know what to do with himself. The nerdy, obsessive, detail-freak side of his personality wrestled with joy.
'I'm as miserable as you like when we lose, especially if we don't play well, so that's a double hit for me today,' he told The Athletic later. 'But then I've got this nice feeling as well, which I'm battling internally. You're jumping up and down with the group, and you have to join in, but I wasn't happy doing it, so it was a weird experience.'
For the record, Howe was also smiling.
At the end of it, Newcastle are winners of the Carabao Cup — their first domestic trophy for 70 years — and are back in Europe's leading club competition, for the second time in three seasons, and while the former was beautiful, emotional and life-changing, the second part will materially affect the bottom line. Qualification brings money, prestige, exposure.
'The power and pull of the Champions League is huge and we can't get away from that,' Howe said.
This is what it means.
From the moment the trophy was lifted, it was job done for Howe and his players. In another sense, it was existence done. Football? Completed it, pal. For longstanding Newcastle supporters, silverware was the only part of the jigsaw still missing. From the Champions League to the Championship, from trying and failing to simply failing, they had witnessed (and suffered through) everything else.
Advertisement
Winning the Carabao Cup brought an end to all those years of yearning. It also meant hitting a target. Last summer, Darren Eales, the chief executive, stated that qualifying for Europe was the primary seasonal objective, and a place in the final play-off stage of the third-tier Conference League was the tangible reward for beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley that March afternoon.
But Newcastle kept on winning in the weeks that followed, rejecting that reward and upgrading it for something far better: the blue-riband competition that attracts elite players to your club and encourages those you already have to stay. 'Winning the cup final gave us a freedom and a newfound confidence and a bounce,' Howe said. 'But delivering the Champions League was an expectation that we placed upon ourselves.'
The effect of that will be manifold.
In 2023-24, Newcastle received £29.8million ($40.3m at the current rate) in prize money after being knocked out at the group stage under the old format of the Champions League — almost 10 per cent of their revenue for that season. Since then, the competition has been revamped, making it even more profitable for participants, who get to share a €2.467bn (£2.07bn/$2.8bn) pot.
The 36 clubs who reach the league phase will receive €18.6million, compared to €4.3m for doing the same in the second-tier Europa League and €3.2m in the Conference League. Money is also distributed via performance-related bonuses, for wins and draws across the eight opening-stage matches (up from six when Newcastle were last involved). Then there is the 'value pillar' — which is a mixture of the old market pool for broadcast contracts and coefficient pots.
The overall maximum prize money for a participant in the Champions League is €156.9million (for comparison, it's €21.7m in the Conference League). The minimum is €20.2m for a Champions League competitor and €3.3m in the Conference League. When every factor is considered, Newcastle are likely to make a minimum of €37m from being in next season's Champions League.
Advertisement
Then there is matchday revenue. League-phase qualification guarantees you four home games in the Champions League (clubs could play a maximum of eight in a season if they get to the semi-finals) and Newcastle would be able to charge higher ticket prices in the most prestigious of the three UEFA competitions. Additionally, many of the club's commercial deals, including with Adidas, are believed to contain bonuses for being involved in the Champions League.
When it comes to the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules (PSR), playing in the Champions League will allow Newcastle to spend more, given revenues will increase. To balance that, costs will also rise; many player contracts (and Howe's too) contain European bonuses, while a deeper squad will be required due to those additional matches, meaning greater transfer expenditure.
They must also adhere to UEFA's cost-to-turnover measures — calculated annually rather than across the footballing season, as PSR is — which is reducing to a 70 per cent limit for 2025-26. However, Newcastle are confident that abiding by UEFA's regulations will not be particularly problematic.
Having failed to bring in a first-team-ready player for the past three transfer windows, competition is required, although the Champions League is expected to mean a focus on a smaller number of quality additions. This was Newcastle's strategy in summer 2023, when Sandro Tonali and Harvey Barnes arrived, plus two youngsters to be developed in now first-teamers Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento.
Howe would like a right-sided centre-half, a right-winger, a goalkeeper and a striker as a minimum, though greater churn is likely.
Until their Champions League fate was sealed, Newcastle could not finalise their shortlist of targets by position, but they will now move swiftly to do so.
'Speed is key for us and I've reiterated that many times internally, because we have to be dynamic,' Howe said. 'We have to be ready to complete things very, very quickly, because good players don't hang around for long.'
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Newcastle's Saudi Arabian chairman, was on Tyneside for the Everton game, which usually helps in terms of getting things done. 'I will have a discussion with the chairman, so I'm looking forward to that and trying to lay some foundations for what lies ahead for the summer,' said Howe.
Advertisement
Having missed out on Bournemouth's Real Madrid-bound defender Dean Huijsen, Newcastle still admire Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guehi, while Ipswich Town striker Liam Delap, Nottingham Forest winger Anthony Elanga, Brentford forward Bryan Mbeumo and Burnley goalkeeper James Trafford have featured prominently during transfer discussions.
There will be exits, too. Striker Callum Wilson appeared to bid a tearful farewell after the Everton defeat, with his contract up next month and the 33-year-old England international potentially among the departures, even if Howe suggested conversations will still take place with his representatives.
And there are further complications, notably UEFA's homegrown quota, which stipulates that participating clubs must have a minimum of eight homegrown players. Two years ago, Howe was restricted to a 23-man Champions League squad, two short of the limit, due to a lack of 'club-trained players'. This makes Sean Longstaff's future even more uncertain as the midfielder could generate some helpful PSR headroom by being sold, yet he would give Newcastle an additional European squad space if he stays.
The Champions League means emotional armoury for Howe, too.
With two qualification for Europe's top club competition, two League Cup finals, one trophy, and Premier League finishes of fourth, seventh and now fifth over the past three seasons, Newcastle have demonstrated they are an elite team, which is of vital importance when they are not yet an elite club with purpose-built facilities.
Now Howe can point to his side's achievements, to Burn's elevation into the England squad, and argue that players' ambitions can be fulfilled at Newcastle. This is the stage which Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes, Tonali and plenty of others yearn to grace. If any of them wish to leave now — and there has been no hint of it — it will not be for that reason.
'The excitement this will bring for the people here is a big thing and, of course, this is a selling point for us now,' said Howe. 'It's an opportunity for us to sell that dream to future players who might be considering coming to us.'
When Newcastle were languishing in 12th place in early December, even those within the dressing room doubted this delayed moment of celebration would come.
'Probably I didn't see this then, not where we were,' Burn said. 'But we've always had the confidence that, when we perform, we know we can beat anyone in the league. That winning run we went on (nine in a row in December and January), it just felt like every time we stepped on the pitch we were going to win.'
Advertisement
Those wins propelled Newcastle up the table, to silverware and now back to Europe's top tier.
Just as this incarnation of Newcastle were different — more business-like — on their second visit to Wembley inside three seasons, Burn is confident a similar evolution will take hold heading into their second Champions League campaign.
'It's an amazing achievement, but now we probably feel as if we should be there,' he said. 'The three years we've been with the manager, I feel like we're constantly improving — and we're starting to get to the stage where we feel like we're a top team. It's going to be tough to top this season.'
The really exciting bit? They'll give it a go.