Newcastle have ambition to be number one – Yasir Al-Rumayyan

Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan says the club are now aiming to be “number one” after their transformation from relegation strugglers to Champions League participants.

The Magpies finished fourth in the Premier League and reached the Carabao Cup final last season, just over a year they had been battling to get out of the bottom three.

The catalyst for the improvement was the club’s takeover by the Saudi-led consortium headed by Al-Rumayyan and Amanda Staveley in 2021.

“It is a great achievement to start with,” Al-Rumayyan told NUFCTV in an interview reflecting on his first full season at the helm.

“Did we expect to do that? Yes. We have the ingredients for success. We have the will. We want to achieve the best positions we can.

“(We) have the right people in management – the technical director (Dan Ashworth), the manager (Eddie Howe) – and we have the right players. To top it all, we have a great fanbase.

“If you have the right people and the will, and the right processes and funds, if you put all these together I think it is a great recipe for success and that is what we are achieving right now.

“Finishing in the top four, our revenue is increasing. Remember, you have to work within the financial fair play framework, so the more revenue we will have, the more players we will have ready.

“Then the Champions League will add more revenue for us. The sponsorship is improving and that’s more funds and more revenue.

“If you put all these things together, I think we should have an ambition and aspiration to be number one.”

Al-Rumayyan, who was wearing a suit lined with black and white stripes and the club crest, described his first visit to St James’ Park as “one magical, electrical moment for me.”

He added: “We have one of the best fanbases in the EPL and potentially the world.”