Premier League chiefs facing pressure to probe Newcastle takeover

Premier League chiefs facing growing pressure to probe Newcastle over their £305m takeover and press them to explain why their owners PIF told US legal authorities they are effectively an instrument of the Saudi state

• Saudi Arabia’s PIF took over at Newcastle in October 2021 from Mike Ashley 
• They told the Premier League the Saudi state would not control the club 
• Court documents describe the club’s chairman as a government minister

The Premier League is coming under pressure to press Newcastle United for an explanation for 80 per cent shareholders PIF telling US legal authorities they are effectively an instrument of the Saudi state.

The League believed in early 2020 that the proposed Newcastle takeover by nation’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) was in fact a Saudi state project that would be driven in part by the influence of Saudi’s de factor ruler, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).

Sources both inside the League and inside Newcastle have confirmed that the League felt that Saudi, as a nation, would become a shadow director of the club, and as such wanted a representative of the government – whether MBS himself or another senior figure – to be subject to the league’s ‘Owners’ and Directors’ test’. MBS is also chairman of the PIF.

Saudi Arabia declined to put anyone forward, perhaps fearing that person might fail the ODT for being linked to a crime, thereby scuppering a takeover with Saudi involvement.

MBS himself, for example, has been cited by US intelligence agencies as the person who ordered the assassination and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Newcastle chairman Yasir Al Rumayyan is a ‘sitting minister on the Saudi government’, according to a US legal document

The Newcastle takeover went through in October 2021, but only after the Premier League had been assured that the Saudi state would not have any control over the club

What transpired instead was that PIF went away and took extensive legal advice before returning to the Premier League with ‘legally binding assurances’ that PIF acted, in effect, at arms length from the Saudi government, and the Saudi state would not be involved in running Newcastle.

To grossly simplify what happened next, the League eventually accepted these assurances, green lighting a takeover that concluded in October 2021, albeit with a caveat. If it transpired Saudi Arabia was dictating events at St James’ Park, PIF could be removed as owners.

So far, so simple. The issue has gained fresh relevance in the past few days because the PIF, which has been funding the controversial rebel LIV Golf series of invitational events, has been asked to provide documents in an American lawsuit between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

In court papers, the top Saudi official involved with LIV, Yasir al-Rumayyan, who also happens to be Newcastle’s chairman, was described by LIV as ‘a sitting minister of the Saudi government.’

LIV argue in the case that the PIF shouldn’t be compelled to hand over paperwork because: ‘The order is an extraordinary infringement on the sovereignty of a foreign state that is far from justified here. The PIF and His Excellency Yasir Othman al-Rumayyan are not ordinary third parties subject to basic discovery relevance standards.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has previously said his organisation can ‘remove the consortium as owners of the club’ if they find evidence of state involvement

‘They are a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a sitting minister of the Saudi government, and they cannot be compelled to provide testimony and documents in a US proceeding unless their conduct – not LIV’s or anyone else’s – is truly the ‘gravamen’ of the case.’

This extraordinary statement effectively argues that PIF is, effectively, an arm of the Saudi government, when previously they told the Premier League they weren’t. Hence there is now pressure on the Premier League, not least from some of the other clubs, to obtain an explanation from the PIF.

The Premier League declined to comment on the case.

Documents from a related British court case in 2021 revealed that the Premier League wrote to Newcastle in June 2020 to say they believed Saudi Arabia ‘would become a director’ of the club in the proposed PIF takeover.

It was not suggested that this in itself should be forbidden, but that the state or rather a representative would need to pass the ODT for this to happen.

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