Newcastle: CEO wants club to be among ‘top’ in world by 2030

Yet it is clear such a dramatic shift won’t happen overnight – even if Hopkinson rates head coach Eddie Howe as a “special” manager.

Hopkinson has carried out an in-depth review since coming in back in September – submitting a transformation plan with closely-guarded milestones for each of the coming seasons to the club’s owners – and he is the first to admit that there is “a lot of work to do”.

Newcastle’s revenues are set to increase to more than £400m, which represents a huge increase on the £140m figure posted in 2021

But they still have an almighty gap to bridge on, say, Manchester City, who generated £715m in income a couple of seasons ago.

This enabled Manchester City to spend nearly £200m more on wages than Newcastle within the financial regulations in 2023-24 and, historically, the clubs with the biggest salary bills tend to pick up the most points in the league.

Finding a way to turbocharge revenues will therefore be a key focus for Hopkinson, who also previously served as president of Madison Square Garden Sports and, perhaps, most relevantly, the head of global partnerships at Real Madrid.

Michael Sutherland, who worked alongside Hopkinson at Real Madrid, as the club’s chief transformation officer, said the executive brought “a lot more structure and a more professional approach to the way sponsorships were managed”.

“You could say, ‘It’s Real Madrid. It’s the easiest role in the world because who doesn’t want to sponsor the club?'” he said. “But it creates a different problem.

“You are basically selling the concept of being with the best club in the world so if Real Madrid don’t have a good season, and don’t win a championship, that heavily impacts your value proposition to sponsors.

“But one of the things that changed a lot was the sophistication of the types of partners we were able to offer and, particularly, the speed with which we were able to execute.”