NEWCASTLE UNITED’S managing director Lee Charnley has described how a “financial gamble” was taken to secure an automatic return to the Premier League, including retaining the services of Rafael Benitez.

At a time when Benitez’s future is uncertain given interest in his services from the likes of West Ham United, the club’s annual accounts for the year up to June 30, 2017 highlight how they made a huge loss in a bid to deliver a swift promotion back to the top-flight.

That included maintaining Benitez’s salary, reputed to be £6m-a-year, and it was a decision that clearly worked because the Spaniard, who only has 12 months remaining on his contract and is discussing an extension, ensured the club achieved its goal.

Newcastle recorded a whopping operating loss of £90.9m during that period, which was down from £900,000 profit the previous year and included the highest wage bill in the history of the Football League of £112.2m.

Despite relegation that wage bill was a £37.5m increase on the previous 12 months spent in the Premier League and was almost three times that of Brighton (£40.4m) and six times greater than Huddersfield (£21.7m), the other two clubs promoted last year.

The £90.9m loss was marked by a huge reduction in TV revenue and have been revealed in the headline figures that have been revealed by Newcastle after filing their annual accounts – the full details are expected to be available next week.

Turnover went down from £125.8m to £85.7m, meaning a loss after tax of £41.3m, which was again down from a £4.6m profit the previous year.

Charnley has outlined how the club went about delivering promotion, suggesting it was made possible by Mike Ashley’s backing and the figures which have been revealed also pinpointed how the sportswear tycoon provided the club with a £15m loan as a lump sum last term, increasing his interest-free loans to the Magpies to £144m.

Charnley, in an official club statement, said: “After an, at times, challenging season in the Championship, everyone with the club was delighted when, with two league games remaining, we secured automatic promotion.

“Even taking into consideration the fantastic levels of support during our Championship season, such is the disparity in central broadcasting and commercial revenues between the Premier League and EFL, we are reporting a drop in annual income of almost one third.

“An immediate return to the Premier League was vital to restore the financial stability and future prospects of the club. With the support and backing of the owner we took what was, in essence, a financial gamble on securing immediate promotion.

“Statistics show how difficult this has been to achieve in recent times, with only five of the 18 teams relegated over the previous six seasons having come straight back up (one via automatic promotion and four via the play-offs).

“We were the only relegated club to achieve an immediate return to the Premier League.”

The summer building up to the season in the Championship saw plenty of changes and led to Moussa Sissoko leaving for Tottenham in a £30m deal – a transfer regularly brought up when the size of Benitez’s transfer budget for the Premier League has been brought up.

Georginio Wijnaldum and Daryl Janmaat also departed during that close-season but Benitez brought in 12 new faces, many of which commanded top-flight salaries and the majority of those remain at St James’ Park now.

Charnley said: “We were therefore under no illusion as to the scale of the challenge we were facing. Retention of the manager and key members of his coaching team, together with a significant spend to reshape the squad for Championship football, gave us what we felt was the best possible chance of success.

“They were some high-profile departures including Moussa Sissoko, Gini Wijnaldum, Daryl Janmaat and Florian Thauvin. In addition to Dwight Gayle , Matt Ritchie and Matz Sels, who joined us in June 2016, a further nine players followed in the financial years 2016/17: Christian Atsu, Ciaran Clark, Mo Diame, Jesus Gamez, Isaac Hayden, Grant Hanley, Achraf Lazaar, Daryl Murphy and DeAndre Yedlin.

“Whilst sizeable transfer fees were earned for the players who left, the cash profile of these deals results in the fees being receivable over periods of up to four years.

“Our ability to withstand the financial impact of relegation, and adopt the approach that we did, was therefore only made possible by the continued financial support of our owner, who injected a further £15m interest-free loan into the club in 2017.

“Gaining promotion was the first priority and retaining our Premier League status was the second, both of which were achieved through considerable hard work, at all levels of the club, across every department, and thanks in no small measure to the magnificent support of our fans.”

In contrast to the rest of the Premier League last summer, Benitez knows that Newcastle were one of the smallest spenders and is angling for a bigger budget this time around.

His stock remains high having guided them to tenth in his first campaign back in the top-flight and that is at the centre of his discussions over a new deal.

West Ham would prefer him to be their next boss and are even understood to be willing to pay the £6m fee that would get him out of his contract.

The fact that Benitez would, though, prefer things to be sorted at Newcastle has meant the Hammers have shown a much stronger interest in Manuel Pellegrini. They are set to talk to the former Manchester City manager over the vacancy.