Newcastle’s director of rugby, Steve Diamond, says the club are definitely keen to attract fresh investment from Middle Eastern backers but suggests there is no imminent prospect of a deal materialising. Diamond has also said that up to 20 players from the Premiership’s bottom club will be departing at the end of the season.

Diamond, who has taken charge with Newcastle still winless after 12 matches, is preparing for a squad shakeup but is not anticipating an instant cash windfall after the club’s chairman, Semore Kurdi, travelled to Saudi Arabia for talks. “I don’t think there’s potential investment at the minute,” said Diamond. “Semore and Matt Thompson went out and met all the rugby union dignitaries in Saudi Arabia. I don’t think for a minute they’re expecting us to put a game on before the Tyson Fury fight in May but they want to investigate how we can help them and reciprocate if there is any potential investment.

“There’s obviously a natural connection with the soccer team here … and I know they’re coming over to one of our home games. They’re embracing many sports at the moment and they want rugby to be a focus point in Saudi Arabia. That’s what the discussions were about. It wasn’t about going there, opening the war chest and saying: ‘Steve, go and buy the All Black team.’ I’d like that but I don’t think that’s happened.”

On a day when the foreign ownership of sporting organisations was a topic of heated debate in the House of Lords, Diamond also said rugby was not financially strong enough to reject completely the idea of Saudi investment because of human rights concerns. “I’m not skilled enough to talk about human rights but it doesn’t seem to bother any other sport performing in Saudi Arabia. Club rugby is obviously still in a very delicate position. It needs to get itself out of the jam it’s found itself in. Bizarrely, the salary cap is going up. It beggars belief really.”

In the more immediate term, Diamond has confirmed that highly rated youngsters Guy Pepper and Louie Johnson will depart the club this summer, with the duo poised to join Bath and Saracens respectively. Others are due to learn their fate early next month. “It’s not nice telling people they’ve no longer got a job but some of them will be expecting it. It needs to be articulated in an honest and direct way and I’ve always behaved like that.”

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The Premiership resumes on Friday evening after an eight-week hiatus with Leicester facing Gloucester and Bristol hosting leaders Northampton. England’s fit-again Jack van Poortvliet makes a long awaited return to Leicester’s matchday squad, with Ollie Chessum, Dan Cole and Tommy Reffell catapulted straight back into the starting XV six days after the final round of Six Nations games. It has been confirmed that all 93 matches in next season’s campaign will be broadcast by TNT Sports and Discovery+.