Newcastle United have a new CEO in town and the Canadian has big dreams for the ‘rocket ship’ waiting to take off.

Overt confidence is not a trait the British do – or tolerate – very well so when wanting to paint a picture of the future, it is perhaps best left to those across the pond.

While Newcastle fans spent the summer tracking Alexander Isak’s every move, a major acquisition arrived in the form of David Hopkinson into the role of CEO.

Hopkinson has an impressive enough CV. He spent 23 years as CCO of a Canadian Sports and Entertainment company. That got him a gig at Real Madrid as Global Head of Partnerships. From there he moved to New York to take on a number of senior roles at Madison Square Garden before landing the Newcastle job in the past summer.

He is not the first North American to get involved in the inner dealings of the Premier League and like those before him, Hopkinson has big ideas.

If Amanda Staveley was seen but not heard and successor Darren Eales neither of those, Hopkinson has gone on the media offensive and has given a long interview to Sky Sports?outlining his optimistic view of the future of the club.

“By 2030, I see this club being in the debate about being the top club in the world,” he said.

“I love the reference to 2030 because if it’s not time-bound, then it’s fantasy. It’s where do we need to get to by the end of 2025? Where by 2026? 2027? Where are we ahead, where are we behind? What’s our mitigation plan? How are we adjusting things?

“What I will not tell you is that we have written the plan for every granular element that’s going to happen between now and 2030. But what we have got is a highly specific direction of travel and key milestones that need to be hit.

“We’re not going to win by accident. We’re going to win because we’ve been thoughtful and strategic about the organisation we’ve constructed, whose sole purpose is to win.”

Hopkinson certainly can talk the talk but reality may prevent many of these dreams coming true. On numbers, Newcastle’s owners Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) are the richest in the league; the only problem is they can’t spend all of it.

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Profit and Sustainability Rules are supposedly to stop clubs going bust but in reality, they help to keep the top table a closed affair.

In the summer, Manchester United were the fifth-biggest spenders despite finishing the previous season in 15th. Tottenham Hotspur, who at least had the cash from Champions League qualification, came 17th but were still able to spend the seventh-highest amount in the league. Meanwhile Aston Villa, who came sixth, were the lowest spenders as their wage bill crippled any hope of strengthening their squad.

PSR, then, has meant a Manchester City-style spend up the table is simply not possible anymore.

The rules are changing with SCR (squad cost ratio) set to replace PSR from 2026 but even that puts a throttle on spending. Eighty-five per cent of revenue can be spent to cover player wages, amortised transfers and agents’ fees. In theory, the new rules will allow clubs more freedom in off-pitch investing but it does not matter if you have the best jacuzzis and saunas at the training ground if your squad is not up to scratch.

This is where the problem lies for Hopkinson and Newcastle. The CEO described the club as “already good” which is a fair assessment both on and off the pitch. Champions League qualification and the League Cup represented a good campaign last season while Deloitte’s 2025 money league had Newcastle as the 15th biggest revenue generator. But that’s still only half of what the truly top clubs generate.

For those looking to make their clubs most profitable, stadiums have become the focus. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes Tottenham earn ￡4.8 million on a matchday thanks to their shiny new stadium. Barcelona choosing to spend around €1.5 billion to renovate the Camp Nou is a clear indicator of that trend to make stadiums more profitable.

So for Newcastle, an obvious place to start is St James’ which, while being a historic ground of English football, is not one of the uber-optimised money-making arenas.

The future of where Newcastle play their football is currently being debated and while the likes of Manchester United have already begun the process of renovation, Newcastle cannot rely on a significant boost from stadium profit any time soon.

“I want to be really clear on this,” Hopkinson said. “We have not taken a decision on what we’re going to do. We’re modelling a multitude of different scenarios.

“But even if we were to make a decision tomorrow, which we’re not going to do, it still takes years of permits, planning, finance, construction etc. That’s the case whatever we choose – reimagining St James’ Park or building a new stadium. Either takes years and years. I lived through the total transformation of the Bernabeu. I was around through years of work. I love what they’ve built – I think we’ve learned a lot from studying what they’ve built – but these projects are years long.

“Even if we could wave a wand right now, and wake up tomorrow morning with a decision over a brand new stadium, those revenues would still not show up for five years.

“But recognising that we are going to be at St James’ Park in pretty much its current format for years to come is important. We’re thinking through what improvements should we make in that intervening period? We could make tweaks and changes to improve the here and now.”

So more income from the stadium is not happening in the near future but Hopkinson says one thing that is on the agenda is making the training ground into a ‘North American’ style complex.

“When you look at the facility you have today, it’s probably a seven out of 10. It gets the job done. I don’t think we have a lot of world-class talent that say: ‘I want to stay here because of the training ground’ or ‘I want to go to Newcastle because of the training ground’.

“Even with the renovation we’re doing, which will make it better, we probably only get to an eight. We don’t get to a 10. We can’t get to a 10 on the current footprint, which is the reason why we’re considering – not considering, planning – a very big investment to go and build a 10.

“If you look at the arms race that training grounds have become – in the Premier League, in football, in North American sports – the players are spending an inordinate amount of time there and the expectations have changed and evolved from simply where we train to: ‘Yeah, that’s where I drop the kids off because they’re being babysat while I’m training’ or ‘This is where the car is being looked after’ and ‘This is where I get my haircut’.

“This is what’s happened in North American sports, and now there are changing expectations here too of what players are going to want in order to choose to come here or stay. Those are the investments we’re going to have to make to get to a world-class level.”

To do this, Newcastle will need plenty of cash and after some speculation that PIF was cooling on spending big in football, Hopkinson insists they are in it for the long run.

“This is a major, major global player. But I truly believe in my heart of hearts that we are their favourite investment. I think we take up so much of their shared mind and heart, way more than would be warranted given the size of the investment.

“I feel like we’re a special investment to them. I feel that, not because they tell me that, but because they show me that. I’m talking to the PIF every single day.

“The question about PIF is a good one – it was one of my questions during the recruitment. There’s always different types of ownership – some are deeply connected, at every single match, every single day, others are much more hands off and just see it as an investment. This group at the PIF is very much in the former camp. It’s every single day.”

If you take Hopkinson at his word, the money is there but finances alone do not guarantee you success in football.

Hopkinson’s interview was a box-ticking exercise for everything a Newcastle fan would want to read but he is not the only ambitious CEO in the Premier League. Very real obstacles are between Newcastle and the ‘top’ of football and it will take more than optimism to break through them.

The Canadian did not divulge on the exact methods Newcastle will go about their climb to the top but from 12th in the table, the top of world football sure does look a long way off.

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