Newcastle United sporting director Dan Ashworth has revealed that there is an internal investigation under way at St James’ Park over the Sandro Tonali betting probe. Ashworth came out to face reporters after a month of tough questions from journalists, fans and the general public on the Tonali situation after he was questioned by police then the Italian Football Federation on his part in illegal betting.
After three intense weeks of head coach Eddie Howe being pushed into the public spotlight to face Tonali questions, Ashworth spoke to 12 journalists at the training ground at a media round table.
During an intense 47-minute briefing, Ashworth, whose name is above the door on transfers, told the press:
- He has looked at himself during the aftermath of Tonali’s 10-month FIFA ban
- That Tonali’s mental health and wellbeing is paramount moving forward
- That Newcastle’s summer transfer plans may have to be brought forward with Tonali banned
- How he always feels “pressure” to get the next transfer deal right
- Why Newcastle would have looked twice at the deal had they known of Tonali’s involvement in betting but has no “reservations” on the player’s talent
- As things stand the door is open to sign players from affiliate clubs on loan from Saudi Arabia partner clubs
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Ashworth says Newcastle are now focused on making sure that Tonali is in the best possible position when he emerges from the other side of his ban in late August 2024. The 52-year-old said: “Sandro is a top player and a big signing, we will miss him.
“To contextualise it, it could have been an ACL injury. These things happen in football, although not in this context. For me, from the minute it happened, you look at yourself. What could we have done better? What could I have done better? What lessons can be learned from this? Could we have known? Should we have known?
“You look at your processes. I’ve been doing this for 16 years and nothing like this has happened before. We pride ourselves on due diligence and getting the right characters. You have all seen the culture and cohesion in the group is extremely strong, and that’s not by chance.
“We spend an immense amount of time looking at the character as well as the athlete. We have and will continue to review what we have done in the past and will do going forward. It’s really tricky about what you can and can’t know about people in this world of GDPR and what you can and can’t check.
“First of all, I look at myself. We haven’t come up with anything yet. Speaking to other sporting and technical directors it’s almost like, ‘How could you have known?’ That would not stop us from trying to get as much due diligence on people going forward to try to mitigate the risk. What do we do for our academy players supporting them off the pitch? There are lot of temptations for a young footballer and senior footballer now.
“Everything is so easy to get to on your phone, you can get to anything. We have a duty of care there as a club and we have been on the phone to the PFA, FA, Premier League to look at what provisions we provide and what can we look to do better.”
When asked whether AC Milan had withheld information from the Magpies during the transfer process, Ashworth replied: “It’s really difficult for me to get into what other clubs do or don’t know. All we can do is look at our own internal investigation and internal process. It’s a really difficult question for me to answer, I just don’t know. It was a massive shock, a massive surprise. Dealing with it was new to all of us. It came from nowhere.”
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When asked whether a replacement or cover player would be signed for Tonali in the next available trading period in January, Ashworth said: “So, we always look two windows in advance so we will have planned for what we will try to do to strengthen the team in the summer of 2024.
“If the right opportunities come in January we don’t mind bringing that forward. We did that with Anthony Gordon last January when we brought that forward when we had the opportunity. Nothing is any different. What we always try to do is have that flexibility. So what we have said to the recruitment team, we could get an injury, we could get a suspension and there might be a player who wants to go.
“So, we have to have that agility and nothing has changed. We obviously know we are going to be without Sandro for the rest of the season. But we’ve got quite a number of midfield players and we have a number of players who can play in different positions. You saw that the other night (win at Man United) and that is one of the strengths of the squad. We’ve got a few injuries back, but fingers crossed they are back and ready for Jan anyway.
“To answer the question, we’ve got a number of things we can do. It might not be a like for like replacement for Sandro. It could be a player who can play in a different position or multiple positions. It could be that young Lewis Miley gets more minutes and comes to the fore between now and January. We might look in a different area of the pitch. But obviously it is a blow losing Sandro. He was one of tour big signings in a key area of the pitch.
“He was going to be one of our most influential players so we have to do everything in our power to make sure the squad is as competitive as possible going into the second half of the season.”
One star that has been mooted as a replacement has been Al-Hilal ace Ruben Neves, who is on the books of a PIF-affiliated club. When asked if there was anything stopping Newcastle setting up a similar pathway to the Allan Saint-Maximin deal, when the Frenchman went the other way, Ashworth said: “Currently no… The current rules and regulations say there is nothing to stop it. Currently.
“But there are, there is a potential that the various different organisations will look at things across related parties and what you can do to acquire players at a fair market value, which have already in place for a quite a while.”
Olivia Martin is a dedicated sports journalist based in the UK. With a passion for various athletic disciplines, she covers everything from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis.
