When Newcastle United consider how to turn a club around and spend heavily while being mindful of not sailing too close to UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules, they might be tempted to use Everton as an example of how difficult things can get.
Starved of success under the unambitious ownership of Sports Direct supremo Mike Ashley for 14 years, Newcastle fans were in jubilant mood outside St James' Park in October last year after it was confirmed the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), PCP Capital Partners and Reuben Brothers had completed a takeover worth £300m.
PIF, the £380bn fund that manages investments globally on behalf of the Saudi state, has been met with widespread criticism in the football world due to Saudi Arabia's questionable history over human rights, its treatment of the LGBTQ community and the questions over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s Turkish embassy in October 2018.
The battle for control of Newcastle by PIF had rumbled on for 18 months having been initially blocked, with the Premier League seeking assurances that PIF would be autonomous from the Saudi state and that the latter would have no say in running the football club.
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Newcastle now have the wealthiest owners in world football and it didn't take long for mocked up images of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland in black and white stripes to do the rounds on social media in the aftermath of the takeover.
The ambition has been laid out already, with PCP Capital Partners head Amanda Staveley stating that the aim was to take Newcastle to football's summit.
But that is a goal that was also in the mind of one Farhad Moshiri when he arrived at Everton back in 2015.
A club that had been starved of success, like Newcastle, billionaire Moshiri had designs on making the Toffees a force at the top in time for them to move into a new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock.
Over £450m has been invested in that pursuit by Moshiri in the past six years and Everton, who have done the big spending and the acquisition of major names on the pitch and in the dug out, but have not been able to deliver what he craved as yet.
And their pursuit of that success, which saw them rack up heavy losses, meant that this season the wallet was closed, the Premier League's version of FFP, profit and sustainability rules, putting paid to any hopes of investment in the window.
Last summer saw former manager Rafa Benitez spend just £1.6m on five players. The acquisition of Demarai Gray from Bayer Leverkusen was where the fee went, while Andros Townsend, Salomon Rondon, Asmir Begovic and Andy Lonergan all arrived on free transfers.
Prior to Benitez's departure last month and the arrival of new boss Frank Lampard last week, full backs Vitalii Mykolenko and Nathan Patterson arrived from Dynamo Kyiv and Glasgow Rangers respectively for a combined £25m. That was the same sum that the club received from Lucas Digne from Aston Villa last month, while the wage bill had much-needed room made thanks to the exit of James Rodriguez to Qatari side Al-Rayyan in late September.
Lampard was able to get two major deals done prior to the window closing with Donny van de Beek arriving from Manchester United and Dele Alli signing a permanent deal from Tottenham. In Alli's case, Everton have been able to kick the P&S can down the road somewhat by paying his potential £40m sum in add-ons, with £10m paid when Alli plays 20 games for the Toffees. There are only 18 left this season which moves the 'obligating event' that would trigger the payment further down the calendar, past the summer transfer window where more room will be made by exits.
Everton have, in reality, had to stand still this season.
The lack of spend isn't something which Moshiri would have wanted to have seen, or expected when he took control. By this time, six years in, European football and the money that comes with it would have, it was hoped, propped up the investment into the playing side. Instead a catalogue of poor strategic decisions led the Toffees to a near crisis point in January, with even the appointment of Lampard becoming a saga as other candidates such as Vitor Pereira were interviewed before giving a sales pitch to the national media for the role.
The lack of achieving the goal of European football is why Bramley Moore Dock has been seen as so key for Everton's future, the club not able to maximise their commercial potential at Goodison Park. In order to bring in more revenues to allow them the flexibility to invest more into players a move is required.
UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules have been criticised in the past for being toothless, the failed effort to ban Manchester City for two years for alleged breaches of FFP through inflating sponsorships often pointed to after the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the decision due to a lack of evidence presented. A Premier League investigation is ongoing.
Paris Saint-Germain are another club who have been investigated for similar allegations, but no strong action has been taken as yet.
But there are the Premier League's own rules that need to be adhered to as well as FFP, and while some may see Newcastle as now having the ability to spend freely in pursuit of success the reality is that any designs on breaking into that cosy 'big six', where the clubs' revenue streams far outstrip their rivals thanks to European football money and the increased value of their commercial deals, will take some time to pull off.
Everton can attest to that.
The Premier League's profit and sustainability rules (P&S) state that clubs are forbidden from posting losses in excess of £105m over a three-year period, although there has been a special case made for the current period to allow two years to be rolled into one to allow clubs to account for the pandemic and the financial chaos that it caused.
Overall, over the past three years Newcastle have turned a profit of £38m which means that they hadf the potential to spend around £200m in the market at the start of January before P&S rules kicked in.
Heavy spend is expected in the training facilities and revitalising a tired looking St James' Park, as well as other infrastructure developments.
A major project of spend, expected to be in the hundreds of millions into the off-field issues that have held the club back.
In terms of transfer spend though, it may mean having to wait some time for their infrastructure and increased revenues, which they will need to make themselves sustainable spenders under FFP limits, really ramp up.
But that didn't stop Newcastle spending heavily in January in a bid to preserve the most lucrative of things; their Premier League status.
Sacking Steve Bruce was a financial hit due to the compensation element, factored into P&S, while his successor, Eddie Howe, has been busy trying to piece together a side that can not only survive this season but kick on again next.
According to figures from Deloitte, in total, Premier League clubs spent over £295m in January - a figure that dwarfs the £70m spent in the top-flight in the same month last year. Of that £295m, 29 per cent (£85m) was spent by Newcastle as Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood, Bruno Guimaraes, Matt Targett and Dan Burn all arrived at St James' Park. The seven players that left Newcastle in January were all loan deals for younger players to EFL clubs.
But signing players to stave off the threat of relegation and become part of the middle bunch once more is one thing, challenging the so-called 'big six' for spots in the Champions League is another altogether.
That takes time, the wage bill will have to rise sustainably and within what the club as a business can afford, not what PIF can afford.
And while that potential £200m spend on players that Newcastle had when PIF came in helped them on their way to making significant changes to the squad, the wage structure of the football club will need to be a consideration, not simply viewing it as money that will allow them to bring in the most lauded stars in world football. The additions such as Wood, Burn and Targett show that they aren't eating from the top table just yet.
Wages at Everton have risen from £77.5m at the time Moshiri took charge to £164.8m for the most recent financial accounts, which showed Everton made a £139.9m loss, making it three loss-making years to take them into penalty when it came to the Premier League's own profit and sustainability rules.
That rise of 112.6 per cent means that Everton are now have a wages to revenue ratio of 88.6 per cent. UEFA recommend an acceptable ceiling of 70 per cent.
Newcastle's wage bill for the most recent accounts is £97m per year, nearly 70 per cent less than what Everton have raised theirs to over the past six years under Moshiri.
That's £67.8m less than what Everton are spending right now, and if Newcastle have ideas to achieve what Manchester City did under new ownership in 2008, when FFP rules weren't in existence, then they have a £254.4m gap to close annually on the wage bill.
Raising commercial revenues will be one way to go about aiding that, but while Everton have had joy in that regard, with considerable support from Alisher Usmanov's USM Holdings who purchased first refusal on the Bramley Moore Dock naming rights for £30m, inflating deals beyond their market value is something that will see Newcastle in breach of FFP and P&S rules, meaning that any rise has to be done sustainably and over a period of time.
The Magpies have the commercial benefit of their stadium and location, something that will aid their cause, and with infrastructure spend not linked to P&S and FFP, expect that to be where the major money is spent early on. Removing Sports Direct as a stadium sponsor and the relaxation of a temporary suspension on related part transactions mean that Saudi commercial money is set to make its way to Tyneside, although any deals struck would have to be done at a 'fair market value'. The wealth of contacts in the region means, though, that Newcastle have a plethora of potential official partners to tap in to.
As for the likes of Mbappe and Haaland, Newcastle may well look to the lessons of Everton and their current battle to make the finances work despite having a wealthy and willing owner as to how difficult it can be to break the hold on the Premier League's riches by the biggest clubs.
Everton's squad value, according to football statistics website Transfermarkt, is placed at around £417.3m. In contrast, Newcastle's current squad value is £250.5m, that's £166.8m less than Everton's. Those figures include the value of players who are on loan at the club.
And when you consider that there is a £67.8m gap in wages that exists between the two clubs that makes a total of £234.6m. The picture with wages, however, will have changed significantly owing to Newcastle adding a number of new players on big pay packets without really offsetting that with departures. Everton, on the other hand, have seen Rodriguez's major wages removed from the wage bill since the last accounting period.
That shows that even £200m would have to be spent wisely to even get them close to matching what Everton are doing now, and that would be taking them to the likely point of P&S penalty if they did attempt it, arriving at it at a time when the Blues will likely be able to spend more freely.
The squad value gap between Newcastle and Manchester City is some £642m, based on the same source as above. Even the most creative of commercial deals will have a job bridging that any time soon, especially when City have their own way of tapping into wealth in lucrative markets, namely the UAE.
