Special report: The future of St James’ Park

Sir Bobby Robson declared it “the cathedral on the hill”, while Eddie Howe describes it as “totally inspiring”.

Decision time is finally approaching over whether the iconic (and expanded) St James’ Park will remain Newcastle United’s ground, or whether they take the bold, contentious step of venturing away from their previously ever-present home.

“Early 2025” is when Newcastle state a resolution will be reached for what Brad Miller, their chief commercial officer (COO), describes as a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity. In Miller’s words, staying or leaving is like comparing “apples and pears, not apples and apples”, and the complexities involved explain why this process has already taken 18 months. “We only want to write that cheque once,” he admitted.

The Athletic has spent weeks speaking to stakeholders, insiders and those affected to outline just how complicated this decision is and has learnt:

• Talks have yet to commence officially between the club and key stakeholders
• There are claims Newcastle cannot sell St James’ — should they wish to do so — because the land is managed by the Freemen of Newcastle
• Newcastle’s stadium must be ready “a minimum of six months” before it is due to host its share of matches at the 2028 European Championship, affecting building timescales
• Some figures within the club doubt majority owner PIF will invest the required funds, despite the hierarchy’s insistence it will
• Underground tunnels from the city’s Metro rail system present a key, expensive engineering challenge
• Leazes Park is the most obvious alternative stadium site but it will be very difficult to gain planning permission

Here is everything we know so far about Newcastle’s stadium plans.

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Why are Newcastle considering the future of St James’ Park?

For myriad reasons, but the three most important are:

1. It is no longer a large enough venue;
2. The stadium requires modernising;
3. Newcastle must create more matchday revenue.

Since the takeover led by PIF (Saudi Arabia’s state Public Investment Fund) was completed in October 2021, Newcastle have sold out 52,256-capacity St James’ for almost every match.

Their average Premier League attendance this season is 52,206. Since the stadium reached its present size, Newcastle’s 24-season average league attendance has been 50,561.

Demand is massively outstripping supply.

Thousands of supporters who left during Mike Ashley’s 14-year ownership of the club simply cannot get back in. There is no official season-ticket waiting list, partly because it would be so long, but a conservative estimate of ‘memberships’ — offering fans the opportunity to enter ballots for tickets — places them in the six-figure bracket (the club have never confirmed the volume, beyond 50,000-plus being sold on day one of availability in 2023).

Concerningly, younger supporters face the prospect of being locked out. “You have to be able to inspire the next generation,” Sir John Hall, Newcastle’s former owner, says. “That is the key to keeping them invested.”

The general infrastructure is also tired. St James’ has grown in piecemeal fashion, on the same site, since Newcastle Rangers played the first game there in 1880. Newcastle West End took up the lease and merged with Newcastle East End to form Newcastle United in 1892.

Part of the reason why St James’ appears lopsided today is because of the different phases of development, and the surrounding physical barriers.

The East Stand was built in 1972 as the ground’s largest stand. It is now its smallest. The lower tiers of the Gallowgate End and Milburn and Sir John Hall (now Leazes) Stands were redeveloped in 1995, taking capacity to just over 36,000. Then in 2000, ‘Level 7’ was finished, adding a 68m (223ft) cantilever roof above the Milburn and Sir John Hall Stands to provide unrestricted views and increase the all-seater capacity to its present level.

But the concourses, toilets, 94 turnstiles and corporate facilities, especially in the East Stand, require renovation. For any stadium, going 25 years without significant refurbishment is a long time. Ashley ignored the issue. The current ownership cannot.

Ultimately, however, this also comes down to income generation.

The Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) have slowed Newcastle’s ability to progress as a club in recent years, and increasing every potential revenue stream is essential.

In terms of overall revenue, Newcastle were seventh in the Premier League for 2022-23 at £250.3million ($312.7m). Arsenal, in sixth, generated nearly double that at £464.4m. The average revenue of the so-called ‘Big Six’ — Arsenal, plus Liverpool, Manchester United and neighbours City, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur — was £580.2m.

One obvious area for greater income production is via the stadium.

When St James’ first surpassed 50,000 capacity, only Manchester United’s Old Trafford exceeded it for size domestically (Wembley, the national stadium, aside).

Now, Newcastle have the seventh-largest capacity in England, with Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock (52,888), plans for expansion at Leeds’ Elland Road (53,000) and proposals to redevelop Aston Villa’s Villa Park (to 50,000-plus) meaning it will drop further down the list.

In 2022-23, Newcastle made £37.9million from matchday revenue.

That was the eighth-highest return, behind the ’Big Six’ plus West Ham (£41m), at their stadium built as the core venue for the London-hosted 2012 Olympic Games. Manchester United’s takings were £163million, while Tottenham’s (£118m) and Arsenal’s (£103m), also in relatively new grounds, brought in nine figures. Manchester City, in sixth, earned £72m at the Etihad Stadium, their home since 2003.

Miller suggested at a fan event in November that a new-build could potentially earn “twice as much” in revenue as a redeveloped St James’, which is why moving ground is something Newcastle are “seriously” contemplating.

That would rob the club of their unique selling point — an imposing and historic stadium right in the heart of the city — but, with finances crucial, heritage cannot be the sole consideration.

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What stage are they at and what’s going on with the feasibility study?

In October, Newcastle announced they would enter a “decision stage” by early 2025. That could come within the first quarter of the year, perhaps in March, around a meeting with the Fan Advisory Board (FAB), before executives present “feasibility study” conclusions to the club’s board.

Minutes from an FAB meeting in November referred to “two options and scenarios previously discussed”. During an event that month at Stack, the fan zone behind the Gallowgate End, Miller implied it was down to two options. He used two hypotheticals — staying at a “transformed”, expanded St James’, or moving “not too far away” to a larger stadium — to conduct a mini-referendum, with the second idea triumphing.

The question felt leading but the response was intriguing, given Miller revealed 71 per cent of supporters surveyed in late 2023 wanted to stay at the present site, with only 29 per cent “open to moving”. Fans were also asked about having heated seats, eating sushi and drinking prosecco, which bemused many.

The feasibility study has been running for more than a year but despite Darren Eales, the outgoing chief executive, stating in July that findings were “imminent”, Miller claimed in October that Newcastle had merely completed its first “phase”.

He stressed the club were “several steps forward” in understanding what is deliverable, and provided an online presentation to the nine-person FAB. This next phase, Miller said, is about understanding benefits, risks and the “art of possible” with all options.

Two senior club appointments in 2024 were also viewed internally as critical to potential infrastructure plans. Miller as COO was one, given his experience overseeing huge building projects, including the $1.3billion transformation of Manchester Airport’s Terminal 2. Roger Thornton was another.

Thornton was added to the board in July following Amanda Staveley’s exit. He helps manage the assets of the Reuben family, whose stake in the club has increased from 10 per cent as part of the 2021 takeover to 15 per cent. Having been involved in Pilgrim’s Quarter, a significant development in Newcastle’s city centre, and with connections to Newcastle Racecourse, Thornton already has a relationship with Newcastle City Council, which is viewed as vital.

In terms of what happens next, whether a “decision stage” means an absolute choice is announced, or multiple proposals are presented for FAB and/or public consultation, is unclear. Planning permission might not even have been applied for, let alone granted, when an announcement is made, and the prospect of work beginning still appears months, if not years, away.

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Are there obstacles to staying and expanding St James’?

Yes. A multitude of them, as previous owners discovered.

“Extremely complex”, is how Miller describes the stadium question.

“St James’ is wonderful but the site has severe limitations,” says Hall, who owned the club for 15 years from 1992. “You are hemmed in and there are factors beyond merely physical which affect redevelopment.”

Since grazing land on the edge of the historic Town Moor was set aside by the Freemen of Newcastle for sport in 1880, the St James’ pitch — now measuring 105m x 68m (344ft x 223ft) — has been where it is today, and the various stands have been built up around it.

The widely-held consensus is that expansion is possible, though opinions differ on how many seats could and should be added.

Hall and Trevor Skempton — Newcastle’s city architect during the 1990s, who sketched proposals to turn St James’ into an 80,000-seater stadium — believe 62,000-65,000 is eminently possible, just by extending the Gallowgate. John Waugh, who had the ear of boardroom members in the 1990s as part of ‘The Magpie Group’, is adamant 75,000-80,000 should be the ambition, although that would mean expanding the problematic East Stand (we’ll get into that below).

An added issue is the cost. The complexities make it expensive to add capacity, meaning potential returns become diminished.

In April 2018, under Ashley’s ownership, the club told a fans’ forum it “would not make sense commercially” to expand the stadium, albeit during a rare period with depressed demand.

While St James’ city-centre positioning is iconic, it is also restrictive.

The graphic below outlines how snugly the ground fits into its location, half a mile from Newcastle’s Central Station and a mile from the River Tyne’s Quayside.

The club own the lease of St James’ and of the plot behind the Gallowgate, but there is privately-owned and council-owned land behind other stands, an underground station for the Tyne and Wear Metro, and roads, listed buildings and a conservation area.

Barrack Road, running past the Milburn Stand, is a major throughway, while Strawberry Place, behind the Gallowgate, is a busy road providing access to Royal Victoria Infirmary, a hospital around 500m from St James’.

As The Athletic outlined, there is even a bizarre plot behind turnstiles 42 and 43 of the East Stand, bought privately for £180,000, which temporarily housed a metal container and a fence leading nowhere. So acquiring the necessary land is far from straightforward.

Of more significance, on Leazes Terrace, also behind the East Stand, there are magnificent Grade-1 listed Georgian buildings, while on the perpendicular-adjoining St James Terrace, there are Grade-2 listed buildings. UK Grade-1 listed buildings are of “exceptional interest” and architectural/historical significance, while Grade-2 listed buildings are of “more-than-special interest”.

The property owners on Leazes Terrace have what’s known as a “right to light”, meaning any extension of the East Stand must consider that, plus the national preservation orders, which is why that side of the ground has not been expanded since 1972.

In the 1990s, Skempton proposed rebuilding the Royal Arcade, which stood on the city’s Pilgrim Street until being demolished in 1963, as a “spectacular” throughway to Leazes Terrace, which might have permitted an extension, but even he accepted it was challenging. Further ambitious and theoretical plans to redraw that area have been privately proposed to some insiders by well-connected supporters, but they appear improbable.

Even if Newcastle went through what Hall describes as the “eye-wateringly costly” process of buying up listed buildings, there might be little to nothing they could do with them. Even if they could, it would take years.

“You’d have to get rid of residents and get special permission to pull these buildings down or relocate them,” says Keith Gunning, a Newcastle season-ticket holder with a bespoke perspective, given he owns a flat in Leazes Terrace. “There’s a theory you could move all the buildings, but everything is listed. And, realistically, does a few thousand extra seats warrant pulling down nationally important buildings?”

The protections do not end there.

The Leazes Conservation Area covers Leazes Terrace, St James Terrace and Leazes Park, which borders the car park behind the Leazes (previously Sir John Hall) Stand. The Friends of Leazes Park body fights to protect that green space, meaning any redevelopment involving encroachment would likely face opposition.

“Any logical next phase of an expansion would be the Gallowgate,” Skempton insists.

Yet even this would not be straightforward, despite the lease on Strawberry Place (running until 2123), sold by Ashley, being bought back in 2023. The 3,000-capacity Stack is located there and was said to be in place for “at least three years” (meaning until late 2026).

Building up and over the road would be costly and present security issues, and going underground is more of an issue.

As the graphic above shows, train tunnels, run-off tunnels and the station itself (all in red) lie directly underneath the plot that would be used for an extension. They touch the St James’ boundary on the corner of the Gallowgate End and the Milburn Stand, before going under Barrack Road.

While building above underground rail lines is widely deemed possible, it requires complicated and expensive engineering.

When Level 7 was added at the start of the century, Newcastle considered stretching it around the Gallowgate, but deemed the time and cost required prohibitive. That is despite the addition of 16,000 capacity for £42million, which was extremely expensive — the quotation for the Gallowgate was even more costly.

Under Ashley, at a fans’ forum in 2014, Newcastle claimed it would “not make commercial sense to spend approximately £30m-£40m to expand for the sake of an extra 6,000-8,000 seats”. It would cost significantly more than that now.

Nexus, the operator of the rail system, is yet to hold official talks with Newcastle but dialogue is expected within months.

The club is also yet to officially approach Newcastle City Council about extending the lease on the stadium site, which expires in 2097. The council is amenable, with Newcastle likely to seek a longer lease than the 99 years agreed when St James’ was expanded in 1998, but that must be confirmed before expansion occurs.

Interestingly, should Newcastle move, they are unlikely to be able to gain financially in the same way Arsenal did by selling their old stadium Highbury in 2006.

St James’ is part of the Town Moor, and managed by the Freemen of Newcastle (also yet to be officially approached). The land was set aside long ago for a recreational sports ground and, while Newcastle own the structure, they cannot sell the plot for commercial redevelopment without council and Freemen consent, plus a change to the user clause in the lease, according to council sources and Skempton.

“The land has no value,” Skempton says. “If Newcastle relocated, the stadium would remain a mothballed white elephant, or be torn down and likely consumed back into Leazes Park.”

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What would Newcastle look to do if they stay at St James’?

Several proposals have been examined, involving expansion to a capacity of anywhere between 62,000 and 80,000, but it is unclear what the final blueprint would look like. Miller said a revamped St James’ would “look amazing”, but was short on specifics.

A month earlier, he stressed Newcastle now “know” what is possible “on our stadium footprint and surrounding area”. Miller cited opportunities and “several risks” with staying.

A well-placed source — who, like others quoted in this article, spoke anonymously so they could discuss issues freely — describes Newcastle’s infrastructure plans as “mega”. Skempton, Waugh and Hall have drawn up previous expansion plans and expect the Gallowgate to be rebuilt as a minimum.

In 2015, Tolent Construction produced an engineering report claiming the stand could have a cantilever structure added, lifting capacity to 60,000, even if buildings had been put where Stack is now.

One proposal under consideration last year was for the Gallowgate to be increased significantly in size, stretching over Strawberry Place, which would run through a tunnel. That would take capacity beyond 62,000, potentially with a steep stand similar to Borussia Dortmund’s “Yellow Wall”, and could feature shops, restaurants and bars as part of a massive redevelopment.

Engineering advancements mean building above the underground lines should be feasible, according to several figures with insider knowledge, though challenging and expensive.

“The Gallowgate is absolutely doable,” Skempton says. “Depending on how ambitious their plans are, even that could cost hundreds of millions.”

The most basic proposal involved a stadium-wide renovation and modernisation, which is highly likely to occur with any potential redevelopment. Particular attention has been dedicated to the troublesome East Stand, with a cantilever among ideas floated, and potential tweaks to the corners at both ends of the pitch, but whether any are feasible is unclear.

What Newcastle attempt to do is also dependent on what they envisage St James’ becoming.

“Tottenham designed a multi-purpose stadium, for NFL and other sports,” Skempton says. “Everton’s is primarily for football. Whichever Newcastle choose will dictate what they do.”

Spurs used land adjacent to their old home White Hart Lane to expand, which required a two-season relocation across London to Wembley Stadium. There have been suggestions Newcastle could rotate their pitch or slide across into the neighbouring car park, but a key consideration of the feasibility study has been where they would play with these works ongoing — which is not a problem if they build from scratch elsewhere.

Any shift in the site’s footprint would likely require a temporary move, and Newcastle do not have many viable alternative groundshares.

Miller has already ruled out using the 67,000-capacity Murrayfield rugby stadium in Scottish capital Edinburgh (90 miles/150km to the north), and bitter local rivals Sunderland are unlikely to allow Newcastle to play at their near-49,000-seat Stadium of Light, around 10 miles to the south-east (politically too, this would be a difficult sell). Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium, which has a capacity of just under 35,000, is around 30 miles further south.

Newcastle could temporarily reduce capacity at St James’ as they rebuild individual sections or stands. Proposals that involve the vast majority, if not all, of the stadium remaining fully operational throughout have been explored, as happened recently with the expansion of Liverpool’s Anfield Road Stand.

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What about the Euro 2028 factor?

St James’ is among 10 host stadiums chosen for the 2028 European Championship being staged in the UK and Republic of Ireland, and will be the venue for group matches, as a minimum — which complicates matters.

European football’s governing body UEFA assumes control over host venues at its tournaments, insisting they meet certain specifications beforehand and also successfully complete test events.

UEFA tells The Athletic: “If a new venue is built or major renovation works are done, there needs to be sufficient time (ie, a minimum of six months) for all relevant parties in the delivery of the event to get familiar with the new or renovated premises before the venue handover and tournament start.”

That means, if Newcastle were to expand St James’, they would need to either finish rebuilding by the end of 2027, which seems unlikely, do a staged redevelopment on either side of Euro 2028, or wait until after the tournament to do the work.

Alternatively, Newcastle could hand back their Euros fixture allocation, though doing so risks affecting their prospects of hosting future major events.

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What do we know about alternative sites?

Any new stadium “wouldn’t be that far away” from St James’, Miller insisted in November.

“The city-centre location is huge for the city and the club,” Adam Stoker, a Newcastle United Supporters’ Trust (NUST) board member, says. “That’s something I could never contemplate losing.”

While the expectation is that Newcastle will look to remain in the city centre if possible, Miller’s remark in November about not “stretching the elastic band to the point of breaking” was in reference to a potential Murrayfield relocation. Any site within the city boundaries is a lot closer than asking fans to go to Scotland.

Leazes Park has been repeatedly floated and has been spoken about internally. But it is a protected area and it is worth noting that, in the 1990s, the Friends of Leazes Park torpedoed plans for a 55,000-seater stadium at Castle Leazes, half a mile north-west of St James’. It is a precedent that shows any plans to build on green space would be controversial and almost certainly face challenges.

Chi Onwurah, the MP for Newcastle Central and West, whose constituency contains St James’, describes the Town Moor and Leazes Park as “highly valued institutions in the city”.

Some figures with insider knowledge of the club’s plans and how the council operates believe a Leazes Park relocation would be “difficult, if not impossible”.

“I don’t see Leazes Park getting through,” Hall says. “If they were to, it’d take years to do so.”

Planning-wise, it would be far more complicated to relocate than expand (unless expansion involved those listed buildings). There could even be a national planning enquiry, as was pencilled in during the 1990s, when English Heritage got involved.

Alternative city-centre locations are limited to non-existent.

“It would be extremely difficult to be in the city centre and not on the St James’ site, because there simply isn’t the room,” Onwurah says, declaring an interest as a non-season-ticket-holding fan. “But it is so important to have Newcastle’s stadium in the city centre, for so many reasons.”

The site surrounding the current Utilita Arena indoor venue, on the banks of the Quayside and a mile south of St James’, is perhaps the only viable space. Even if Newcastle did consider moving there, Homes England purchased the land last year and is proposing a significant housing development.

Further afield, Newcastle Racecourse has repeatedly been claimed as a potential site, given the Reuben family owns it. However, as it’s five miles north of the city centre, that would represent a significant geographical move and insiders have played down those suggestions.

All potential alternative sites floated would bring their own unique complexities.

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The finances – the costs and benefits of staying versus moving

This is essentially a choice between financial returns and tradition (with myriad nuances).

A Miller quote in October felt telling. “It must provide an investable return,” he said. “And, not least, deliver strong revenue growth to increase our PSR headroom.”

A new stadium is predicted to cost between £1billion and £2bn, significantly more than the £500m to £1bn estimated for a widescale redevelopment of St James’. While the current ground already has 52,256 seats and a fresh site would require all those and more to be paid for, the latter could, according to Miller, generate up to twice as much revenue.

PSR regulations tie revenue to expenditure. If Newcastle are to be playing in any of UEFA’s three club competitions, they will be limited to spending 70 per cent of their revenue on player costs. In 2022-23, that equated to £175.2million. The average for the ‘Big Six’ was £406.2m.

Spurs have trebled matchday revenue since their new stadium opened in April 2019, while their commercial income has also grown threefold, partly as a knock-on effect. Everton are set to treble their corporate offering once they leave Goodison Park for Bramley-Moore Dock in the summer of this year.

At the moment, Newcastle have 100 executive boxes, costing £40,000 to £90,000 a season — up to 10 times less than the highest prices charged by other Premier League clubs. Some senior sales and commercial staff have remarked privately that, purely from a business-sales perspective, a new stadium would be game-changing.

A new stadium could theoretically host international football fixtures, other sports such as NFL games and music concerts more easily and frequently, further expanding revenues. St James’ is already an every-day venue for business events, but another ground could be far more lucrative.

“Building new, rather than redeveloping, is always better and more cost-effective,” says Hall, who oversaw the construction of Gateshead’s MetroCentre shopping mall in the 1980s. “You can put fresh ideas into it without restrictions. My heart prefers staying but, if you want to build a ‘super-stadium’, it’s borderline impossible there.”

Stack’s huge success has entered Newcastle’s consideration. Since opening in August, the seven-day-a-week venue has generated millions — more than forecast.

Some insiders detected a shift on the stadium question once co-owner Staveley sold her stake in the club in July. Not a definitive one, but a greater willingness to consider relocating more seriously.

There is also that question of size.

As Hall asserts, a new stadium would be “one way of accommodating the next generation of fans”.

Like Miller and Thornton, Eales has experience of large infrastructure projects. At Atlanta United, he helped oversee the construction of the multi-purpose, 75,000-capacity Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which the MLS club share with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons. For MLS matches, its capacity is usually restricted to 42,500.

Eales recognises scarcity value is essential to the business model, with empty seats depressing takings. If demand is there to sell out 70,000-plus seats for every match, a new stadium makes sense; if 60,000 to 65,000 is the optimum figure, an expanded St James’ becomes more viable. “You cannot make the mistake of going ‘too big’,” Skempton says. “You want to get more people in, but you need demand to maintain a certain price point.”

The short-to-medium-term PSR benefit should not be exaggerated, either. Any new stadium is likely to be five to 10 years away, so none of that additional matchday revenue would be available until then. Spurs and Arsenal’s new stadiums have not led to a succession of trophies for those clubs either, even if they have benefitted financially.

“I find it rather depressing every conversation is about PSR,” fan and NUST board member Stoker says. “Football is about memories and passion. That will dictate my opinion, not whether we can get more pounds in.”

And there is the opposite perspective: tradition.

In February 2022, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, Staveley’s husband and then fellow co-owner, told The Athletic that leaving St James’ “would be like tearing your soul out”. While involved at Newcastle, he and his wife regularly signposted that staying was preferable.

Howe, the head coach, has repeated that his inclination is to remain. “It’s our home,” Howe said at a press conference in October, while acknowledging “increasing revenues” is essential. “To think about moving elsewhere feels like a little bit of a betrayal to somewhere that’s served us so well.”

For many Newcastle fans, their emotional connection makes leaving unpalatable. Yet there are also statistical benefits associated with the ground.

From the start of the 2018-19 season up to December, Newcastle picked up an average of 1.6 Premier League points at St James’ and 1.1 on their travels — the third-highest points differential between home and away. A Sky Sports study in 2015 found Newcastle boasted the fourth-highest home-win ratio in English football history.

The 3ft (91cm) incline in the pitch, which slopes from the Leazes to the Gallowgate, could theoretically be recreated elsewhere, but Howe cites a “unique” power that St James’ brings.

Of course, Newcastle have not won a domestic trophy since 1955, or any major silverware since 1969. There is no designated trophy room inside St James’ because they do not need one.

“We’ve been sh*te pretty much the whole time I’ve supported Newcastle,” Gunning says. “So I’m not sure staying is the key to winning.”

The present location has further benefits, including transport links, city-centre parking spaces and its proximity to Central Station. Building a new stadium elsewhere would require considerations regarding traffic, footfall and access.

There would be a knock-on effect for city-centre bars, restaurants and businesses if the club moved, too.

“The location of St James’ drives the economy,” Hall says. “I know first-hand that so many businesses are reliant on the club being where it is. Take the footprint too far away and the effects could be felt far and wide.”

“The whole economy would get a boost from increasing the stadium size in the city centre and hopefully more fans could get in at what I hope would be affordable prices,” Onwurah says.

A new stadium would also represent another departure from the club’s heritage.

Any fresh venue might be named after one of PIF’s companies, as with Manchester City’s Etihad. There has been a degree of separation between their Saudi Arabian majority ownership and the club’s day-to-day image, but that association might become starker if a state-of-the-art ground gets built by the current regime.

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Who will make the decision and who will finance it?

PIF would, fundamentally.

Eales and Miller have repeated that supporters, via FAB and potential consultation, will be involved. In November, Eales declared it “absolutely imperative” that this is “a fan-led decision”.

“Absolutely, fans need a say, because we’re the ones who are ultimately going to have to live with it until the day we die,” Stoker says. “This cannot be a club-hierarchy decision alone. Fans need a proper voice.”

Onwurah hopes the club deliver on their promise of dialogue: “This is a decision for Newcastle United, but also one we need to make as a city, because it is going to be controversial regardless, given the passion on all sides. Fans and local communities need to agree what is best for the club and the city, so extensive consultation is required.”

But PIF is the ultimate decision-maker at Newcastle now, and finances will be critical to its thinking. All options — even the very unlikely ‘doing nothing for now’ — remain possible.

When it comes to who will majority fund the project, that needs to be PIF.

Infrastructure investment largely falls outside of PSR restrictions, yet some well-placed figures with knowledge of PIF’s operations have cast doubt over whether the Saudis would commit such sums. One has repeatedly claimed that “they won’t invest”. Even some club insiders have displayed scepticism, given the lack of a new state-of-the-art training ground (yet) more than three years after the takeover.

Neither PIF nor Newcastle commented on anything relating to the stadium, its potential financing or any points raised in this article when approached by The Athletic.

But in November, Eales disputed suggestions that PIF’s focus is on other projects beyond Newcastle, declaring: “Absolutely (they are committed to financing it), the ownership have been incredible. They’re behind us, but we want to make the right decision (and) present a business case.”

That final point is important. Sources close to PIF insist stadium investment was always part of the business plan and, seemingly, any decision will be heavily influenced by the potential financial returns.

Their owners might be ambitious, but Newcastle do not operate as the “wealthiest club in the world”. Every decision requires a “business case” — especially ones that might cost billions.

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What have fans’ groups and potential stakeholders said?

While Newcastle City Council is not taking an official position before proposals are revealed, a spokesperson said: “The city council has had no formal talks with the club about this important matter. Our door remains open, as it would with any developer, and when the club wants to discuss their plans in detail with us we will be happy to sit down, listen and advise.”

The Athletic received no response from the office of Kim McGuinness, mayor of the North East, which covers seven local council districts.

Meanwhile, rail operator Nexus said: “We look forward to seeing Newcastle United’s plans for St James’ Park in due course and we will work closely with the club when they bring forward more detailed proposals.”

The NUST does not have an official position yet, as it awaits firm proposals. However, in a survey of its 11,500 members in May, 73 per cent said they preferred to stay, with 19 per cent preferring to move. “This is definitely splitting the fanbase,” Stoker says. “What supporters need is more information about what is possible, so they can fully determine what they want to see happen. For now, it is all theoretical.”

Wor Flags, the fan-funded supporter group that produces banner and tifo displays at Newcastle home matches, encouraged a “quick announcement” of survey results because “it is important each fan feels they have been consulted and listened to”.

“St James’ Park is our home of 132 years, smack bang in the city centre, where generations have fallen in love with this club,” Wor Flags said in a statement. “It isn’t something we should give up lightly. It would be very difficult to leave behind and we would want guarantees the stadium remains as the beating heart of our city centre and that the club ensures any new stadium is primarily geared towards maintaining an atmosphere that we attempt to help build.

“We would not be supportive of another soulless bowl, where increased revenue has been of greater importance than creating an environment conducive to supporting the players.”

The Freemen of Newcastle organisation insisted it will discuss this matter only with the club and council directly, should a proposal require consultation.

Friends of Leazes Park is waiting to see what is announced before making any remarks, if relevant.

Wherever Newcastle’s future lies, there remains a long road ahead.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)