How Newcastle United Players Are Protesting Against The Club Over Bonuses

As Newcastle United supporters will tell you, when it comes to their club, nothing is ever simple.

Following a victory over Chelsea on the last day of the season last campaign, supporters were in ecstasy.

The club had survived the drop and had Rafa Benitez for another year. All they needed was for Mike Ashley to begin contract talks with the Spaniard, to show him some ambition and get Benitez to sign on the dotted line and stay for longer than just the year left on his deal.

But the owner is very good at spoiling the party. He's given Benitez next to no money to sign players this summer window, withheld the TV money the club earned, and to top it off, he's not allowed them access to of the money generated from the players they've sold this summer. The club's profit stands at around £28 million without taking into account the money from TV rights - and Newcastle are scraping by.

But it's not just the supporters who Ashley has angered over funds. Even the players at Newcastle are unhappy with Ashley's antics. They are in disagreement with the club over bonuses they will receive for the upcoming season, and now they've started to protest.

And they're doing this by refusing media duties, including not allowing the media film them for the Sky Sports 'walk-on' graphic. The players have no problem with the media, but it's a way of letting people know they're unhappy.

Though the details of the dispute haven't been reported yet, for every single one of the players of the squad to join in the protest tells you something.

Benitez recently said of the situation via the Newcastle Chronicle:

"When I decided to come here - it's because I could see the potential. You can see it, you have 52,000 [in the stadium]- you have 300,000 fans - they are very clever, they know what is going and at the same time they know they have to support the team because it is the only way to guarantee the team stay up.

"Then I will fight until the end. Can I guarantee anything that will happen tomorrow - in my head it is to stay and fight and ensure that we do well and if everything is right, talk about the future but the problem is that we've been talking about the future for the last month and not going in the same direction.

"Hopefully we will continue working hard together to ensure the team stay in the Premier League."

Topics: Football News, Football, Newcastle United

Jacque Talbot

Jacque Talbot is a journalist and sports writer at SPORTbible. He graduated from Manchester Metropolitan with a BA in English and Film. He is a football, snooker, and basketball enthusiast and has been published in the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Set Pieces, Planet Football and the Morning Star. He’s the greatest thing to come out of Essex since Nick Frost.

@Jac_Talbot