NEWCASTLE lead the Premier League chase for Peterborough winger Ricky-Jade Jones.
Top scouts will watch Jones at Wembley in the EFL Trophy final against Wycombe.
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The lightning-quick forward, 21, has scored 11 goals and provided five assists this season.
Jones has been on the radar of bigger clubs since making his first-team debut aged 16.
He runs 100 metres in 10.9 seconds and has added intelligent pressing and high work-rate to his game as he has matured.
Usain Bolt holds the world-record for the 100m after running it in 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Athletics Championship.
Newcastle are among the top-flight clubs now forced to be creative with their recruitment in response to tough new financial regulations.
And Jones is regarded as one of the stars of the lower leagues.
He has just over one year left on his current contract.
Posh director of football Barry Fry will seek £2million.
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Jones’ impressive displays have helped Peterborough close in on silverware and stay in the hunt for promotion to the Championship.
Darren Ferguson’s, son of legendary Manchester United boss Sir Alex, side are fourth in League One and look set to battle it out in the play-offs.
WHAT IS FFP?
SunSport’s Martin Lipton breaks down what it is all about…
FFP – or Financial Fair Play – is a concept originally introduced by Uefa in 2009, officially to prevent clubs from spending money they could not afford.
Yet many critics have rounded on the system, accusing it of being a protective instrument, drafted by the so-called “legacy clubs” to prevent insurgent and wealthier clubs from buying their way onto the top table.
The Premier League introduced its own FFP regulations which came into effect for the 2013-14 season and which, while less stringent than Uefa regulations, they do impact on club spending.
Under the current Prem “Profitability and Sustainability” regulations, clubs who are constant members of the top flight for a three-year period are allowed total losses of £105m over those three campaigns.
But it is not as simple as totting up outlay and income.
The biggest outlay, of course, is transfer fees. The 20 Prem clubs spent a total of around £2.4bn in last summer’s transfer window.
Yet that does not mean they “spent” that money as far as the Prem rules are concerned.
Transfer fees are “amortised” over the length of the contract, so, for example, a £100m fee for a player who signs a five-year deal is amortised at a cost of £20m per season for each of those five campaigns.