Matt

Just to be clear, someone who was not fit to be the manager of Blyth Spartans.

Is it actually being built? The market for commercial real estate is on its arse. Whatever the use- retail, office, student housing- all have taken an absolute beating.

So did I. He won 37 international caps.

Surely it's split between the teams? Normally you would have total receipts less allowed expenses (including travel) with half of the balance to each side.

Aye, I hope Marine do well out of it. Been down there a couple of times and they are a thoroughly decent set of people.

Get in Scotland. Love it.

Men and women can. Not sure about women and John Terry. I'm sure there is a lot of urban legend, but some of the stories about him are shocking.

The ITV Digital deal went well for them.

Blyth's Robbie Dale has announced his retirement at 36, finishing as the club's second-highest all-time goalscorer. To think the guy originally had reservations about joining as he didn't feel he was good enough.

Not sure if Blyth will have even trained together for two weeks before the FA Cup game due to a positive test in the group meaning the players have had to self isolate. This season is going to be a farce and is almost certainly going to be abandoned. The FA Cup might just about survive, depending on which clubs survive the Covid lottery.

Blyth have picked up over the course of pre-season. Nelson seems like a level-headed guy- hope they can keep heads above water in a very tough division.

You're absolutely right that this case has shown how poorly and inconsistently the PL has undertaken diligence to ensure owners of clubs are considered suitable in the best interests of the competition. There will be pressure to ensure issues like human rights abuses are explicitly taken into account which will surely cause issues when next season's refresh is undertaken. And while we're guessing, I think you're also right that if it weren't for PIF being so closely connected to the PL's enemy No1 then they may have been less rigourous.

Being involved in day-to-day running is not the object of the test. It's all about control which is defined as: “Control” means the power of a Person to exercise, or to be able to exercise or acquire, direct or indirect control over the policies, affairs and/or management of a Club, whether that power is constituted by rights or contracts (either separately or in combination) and having regard to the considerations of fact or law involved, and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, Control shall be deemed to include: (a) the power (whether directly or indirectly and whether by the ownership of share capital, by the possession of voting power, by contract or otherwise including without limitation by way of membership of any Concert Party) to appoint and/or remove all or such of the members of the board of directors of the Club as are able to cast a majority of the votes capable of being cast by the members of that board; and/or (b) the holding and/or possession of the beneficial interest in, and/or the ability to exercise the voting rights applicable to, Shares in the Club (whether directly, indirectly (by means of holding such interests in one or more other persons) or by contract including without limitation by way of membership of any Concert Party) which confer in aggregate on the older(s) thereof 30 per cent or more of the total voting rights exercisable at general meetings of the Club. For the purposes of the above, any rights or powers of a Nominee for any Person or of an Associate of any Person or of a Connected Person to any Person shall be attributed to that Person PIF would have to prove objectively that their governance is entirely separate and outside the influence of MBS/KSA (which is in effect the same thing). I think that is a very hard argument to prove. Why would no Saudi law firm take up the PL in their attempts to combat BeOutQ? How can any Saudi body of wealth (let alone one legally benefiting the state) be independent in the light of MBS' previous actions? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017-19_Saudi_Arabian_purge) So when PIF present a verdict from the Saudi court saying PIF is independent, it really carries zero weight. I'm guessing here, but in my view it is likely the PL made the PIF-MBS connections very quickly (it should take less than a minute if you go on their website- www.pif.gov.sa/en/Pages/Boradmembers.aspx) and the consortium then spent time trying to find various alternate ways around the inevitable, ultimately unsuccessfully. And FWIW, in the example you gave yes Charles would be considered a Director for the purposes of the test unless his ownership was through a sufficiently independent trust structure to convince the PL he would not be able to place influence over the club. It's not uncommon for monarchs to be considered beneficial owners of assets and be subject to financial crime monitoring as anyone else could be- in fact they are usually required to be subject to enhanced measures vs the man in the street.

I presume they could open up the US market for us via their subsidiary Entertainment 720?

Ashley has done many things in his time at NUFC, but using the club for a steady cash income has not been one of them.

Never been along to Dulwich? The ground is just too small to handle anything over about 1500, although they have can bars on each corner which is a nice touch.

Gotta still have that crushing disappointment somehow. Although who knows, might be some decent players up for grabs this summer.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty disappointed in the consortium if it's true the whole thing has fallen down because the PL wanted to apply the Director's test in effect to MBS/KSA and the Saudis are not happy being subject to that level of scrutiny (which is not a one-off test, it's an ongoing obligation). It's there in the rulebook and I think some of the quotes from Staveley are trying to make it sound as though the PL were asking something unreasonable. If I were entering into a transaction in my professional life, then I am expected to exercise diligence in understanding who I'm dealing with- not just directly- but those who will be the ultimate beneficiaries of that transaction. Under no circumstances would I consider stopping at PIF and not considering MBS and the Saudi state as controlling persons. PIF is not an independently-managed fund, MBS heads the board of PIF and is the absolute monarch of KSA. Even if we weren't personally involved, he has demonstrated in the Ritz Carlton incident that he can easily exercise control over other wealthy Saudis and members of the expansive royal family and that the legal system in KSA does nothing to protect individuals from the actions of the monarchy. If you can still be bothered to read it, this is straight from the PL's own rulebook:

Exactly, until the answer is yes, the answer is no. Sorry if this has been posted before, but for anyone who wants to pick through the bones of it, the rulebook is here: https://resources.premierleague.com/premierleague/document/2020/06/23/d26d1955-3ffe-4e62-a861-9a4ecf405e0e/2019-20-PL-Handbook-230620.pdf The relevant bits are: Definition of 'Director' (A.1.56 p83) O&D test (F, p125-130), especially F.1.5 and F.1.6 Appendix 1 (p415)

He's still got another year on his Spurs deal.

Joelinton clearly doesn't fancy the second half

A sensible choice would be 30 June, being the club's financial year-end.

On what basis are we all concluding this guy has no money?

Maybe that's what's happening? Of course PCP/MA can agree to extend that date but if the PL believes (or has come to understand) that an extension would not be mutually agreeable then procrastination would be a very useful way of avoiding an uncomfortable decision.

Somewhere in the sale documents there'll be a long-stop date beyond which the deal will only proceed if both sides agree to waive or extend it. Normally that date contains a fair bit of leeway but you don't want it to be too long in order to protect both parties to material unforeseen events. We must be edging closer to it.