Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has admitted to having made mistakes in terms of decision making for the club over the years. Ashley has long been slammed by fans of the club and manager Rafa Benitez recently criticized him for failing to provide sufficient funds to invest in new talent for this season.
Ashley has now confessed that some of the mistakes that he has made over the years include the sacking of Sam Allardyce too early, changing the name of St James Park to Direct Sport Arena in 2011 and allowing the wheels to come off at the club in 2014 after it achieved some stability.
Ashley said about his stint in charge of the Magpies, “Very naive in the beginning. In the middle I thought I was just about beginning to get my arms around it a little bit, we had a manager on an eight-year contract [Alan Pardew].
“We had the finance right, talked about investing in the training ground and the academy, we had a strategy, buying young talent and developing.
“I probably rushed in too early (with Allardyce). The first thing, letting Sam Allardyce go, I was probably too keen to get going and make a difference, and I was a bit naive about how football worked.
“The first thing you feel is stupidity, because as soon as you know the hindsight of something, you know what you were doing wrong.
“For example, I thought it was the right thing to do was to generate as much money as possible for Newcastle, so when people say to me: ‘Whatever you do on an interview do not talk about changing the name of St James’ Park!’
“Well I’m me, and I’m going to talk about making an error, and I should not have changed the name of St James’ Park. I should not have done that.”
