Why Newcastle are making FIFA look like beacons for openness and transparency - and why it matters

The club was appointing a respected former England boss as their new head coach, having persuaded him to move to St James’ Park at the third time of asking.

Mike Ashley, a deeply unpopular figure amongst the frustrated fanbase, was stepping down from the board.

The controversial policy of writing off the cup competitions was being reversed, with Steve McClaren’s incentivised contract reflecting the new desire to bring some silverware to Tyneside.

With the sun beating down on Gallowgate, all the ingredients were there for one of those magical days when the beating heart of one of England’s most captivating clubs is laid bare. They’ve thrown open the gates before for managerial appointments or new signings – most notably when Sir Bobby Robson, Alan Shearer and even Michael Owen were unveiled – and the subsequent tumult reinforced the impression of a club at the heart of its city.

Not anymore. The doors remained locked yesterday, providing a physical barrier to go along with the emotional dislocation that has turned so many supporters against their own birthright. There were no fans clamouring to meet McClaren, no passionate outpourings to remind him of just why he should feel so honoured to have inherited the position he signed up to earlier this week.

There were also no independent members of the press on hand either, just a couple of media institutions – Sky Sports and the Daily Mirror – selected because their willingness to acquiesce has seen them selected as “preferred media partners”. This morning, two more Newcastle-based newspapers, part of the Trinity Mirror group that appears to have shed its previous pride in editorial integrity to get into bed with Ashley and his cohorts, were also invited for a cosy chat.

Now I understand that if I rail against that arrangement, there will be those who claim it is simply sour grapes. We pride our independence here at The Northern Echo, and we will not be signing up to anything that has the potential to limit our ability to criticise those in power at Newcastle United – or any other football club for that matter - when we feel they are doing wrong.

Will that make it harder for us to do our jobs? Quite possibly. Will it prevent us from providing our usual service of breaking stories, reporting on events and casting an unfettered eye over everything that is happening at the club? I promise you that it won’t.

That said, though, it still matters. It matters that Ashley and managing director Lee Charnley are doing everything they possibly can to limit the opportunity for probing, uncomfortable questions to be asked, and it matters that they are severing the one remaining unbiased link between the club and its fanbase.

If media organisations sign up to “preferred access”, then whether money changes hands or not, there is inevitably a tacit acceptance that they will play by the club’s rules. Witness the Mirror’s fawning treatment of McClaren’s appointment yesterday. Always a left-leaning newspaper, the tabloid has gone the whole hog and turned itself into the footballing equivalent of Pravda.

Fans have a right to know what is happening at their club, without the addition of public-relations driven spin. An independent media, with unhindered access, is a key way of making that happen. What happened at Newcastle on Wednesday was an affront to all notions of a free press.

None of this would matter quite as much if the Newcastle hierarchy were communicating with the supporters in a different way, but their record on that score is equally as disturbing.

When Charnley was made managing director in April 2014, he cited the Fans’ Forum, a regular meeting between a diverse group of supporters’ representatives and senior club officials, as “our primary means of direct supporter communication and engagement”.

Towards the end of last season, Fans’ Forum members contacted him seeking an urgent meeting to discuss the various crises engulfing the Magpies. Charnley provided a written reply, promising to “bring forward the date of our next Fans’ Forum meeting which was originally scheduled for the end of the season”.

As of last week, Fans’ Forum members were still trying to discover when this meeting would be, even though the season finished on May 24.

This is the environment McClaren has walked into, and for all that I still believe his appointment is an astute one given his coaching pedigree, it will be all the harder for him to succeed unless he is able to convince the supporters that he is more than yet another puppet for Ashley’s deeply unpopular regime.

The perception that Alan Pardew was simply Ashley’s ‘yes man’ haunted him throughout his reign, and McClaren will be tarred with the same brush unless he is able to create some daylight between his own position and the antagonistic attitudes of those who now sit alongside him on the Newcastle board.

A majority of fans didn’t want him to be appointed in the first place, and while, like any other manager or head coach, he will ultimately be judged on results, his cause  will hardly be helped if supporters continue to regard him as ‘one of them’ rather than ‘one of us’. As he knows from his time as England manager, a hostile national press hardly makes life easy either.

In the past, it has been hard to argue that the man in the St James’ Park dug out has much wriggle room when it comes to dictating wider club policy. Having effectively replaced Ashley on the board, though, McClaren finds himself in a much different position.

He can influence the club’s press operations and can also have a powerful say in how Newcastle interact with their fans. He can end the era of secrecy and suspicion, and champion a move towards a more open and transparent club, willing to listen to supporters’ comments and concerns rather than treating them as an unwanted irritation.

The alternative is that things continue as they are, with Newcastle making FIFA look like a progressive organisation when it comes to permitting meaningful scrutiny.