Newcastle agree record fee for Owen

It's looking like Owen is leaving Real Madrid to join the Magpies -

Newcastle agree record fee for Owen

Potential deal would eclipse £15m spent on Shearer

Staff and agencies
Wednesday August 24, 2005

It looks like being Newcastle or bust for Michael Owen. Photograph: AP.

Newcastle have agreed a club record transfer fee with Real Madrid for England striker Michael Owen.

The club's current record fee stands at the £15m paid for Alan Shearer in 1996, meaning the Spaniards could negotiate a tidy profit on the £10m they paid Liverpool for Owen last summer.

"Newcastle United have met Real Madrid's asking price and conditions," read a Newcastle statement. "The agreed fee will be a record transfer fee for Newcastle United. It is now up to the player and his advisor."

Real Madrid director of communications Antonio Garcia Ferreras confirmed his club had agreed a fee with Newcastle for Owen and also reported there was still no offer from Liverpool for their former player.

"This morning Real Madrid and Newcastle United have reached the principles of an agreement on the conditions of Michael Owen's transfer to the English club," he said. "There is still no agreement between Michael Owen and Newcastle. At the moment we have not received any offer from Liverpool."

Owen had already signalled that if a return to Liverpool, his preferred option, failed to materialise, he was only willing to spend a season on loan at St James' Park.

He said: "I said that my ideal situation was to start the season in the Real Madrid team and if not I would prefer to return to Liverpool. The president understood and said he would try to help me achieve this.

"If the transfer cannot be finalised in time I have agreed to go to Newcastle United but only on a one-year loan. I need to be playing regularly in World Cup year."

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It will be great to see Owen back in England, but why Newcastle? That team has been going downhill for the last few years and they better not take Owen with them.