Schalke’s hopes of selling Nabil Bentaleb to Newcastle United this summer have been ‘severely dampened’ by the breakdown in takeover talks with the Saudi Arabian investment group.
The party, led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, elected to end their interest in Newcastle yesterday after months of speculation about a potential takeover and several weeks of the deal being held up by the Premier League.
That has left Newcastle stuck with Mike Ashley for the timebeing and in the process thrown their plans for this summer up in the air.
The Magpies had been linked with a long list of potential signings this summer should the takeover go through, with the new owners thought to be keen to spend.
Another who may have arrived was Bentaleb, who has spent the second half of this campaign on loan at St James Park.
Newcastle have an option to make that deal permanent for €10m, and Schalke have been waiting nervously to discover whether they will take it up.
However, Der Westen report that the failed takeover bid has now ‘severely dampened’ the possibility of that happening.
They report that Schalke’s talks with Newcastle ‘seemed to be going in the right direction’ in recent weeks and the Magpies were ‘satisfied’ with how his loan spell had gone.
Neither the price of a transfer or his salary had been negotiated, but there was growing optimism that a deal could be done.
The new owners were looking to make Newcastle a big club, and Bentaleb ‘seemed to play a role in this planning.’
Now, however, there ‘is a risk’ there will be a turnaround in the negotiations given they have pulled out of the planned takeover.
