Jackie Broon

Only if there are grounds to appeal i.e. they can make a case that the judge has made a legal error, and they are granted right to appeal on that basis. They can't just appeal because they don't like the decision. But, yes, that is possible.

There's been no reason for them to, they can still make the CAT case go away with their jurisdiction challenge. If they lose the jurisdiction challenge the situation becomes very different for them, no more hiding behind a confidential arbitration process and they will be legally required to disclose everything that they don't want to.

The hearing is but there won't be a decision then. Going by other jurisdiction challenges on their website the decision is generally published about a month after the hearing.

Have you been asleep for the past month? My money is still on the PL folding if/when they lose their CAT jurisdiction challenge, which we should find out the result of around the end of October.

Together with accusing the 'mainstream media' and anyone who questions his obvious bullshit of being in the pay of Qatar. He's a fucking fantasist.

My point around the public announcement was that public announcements are not formal. The formal process of withdrawing from the deal would be separate and behind the scenes. That public statement in reality holds no weight and there is no requirement on them to have actually formally withdrawn from the deal. On top of that there is evidence in the documents of a court case, leaks from government and documents on Companies House that the deal was still alive until at least September.

Are you referring to their letter to Chi Onwurah in which Masters said that PIF "voluntarily withdrew from the process"? That letter was dated 14th August 2020, we know from the CAT case summary that: "The Claim states that the Defendant exercised its power to block the Proposed Takeover when it decided between June and September 2020 that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would be a director exercising “control” over NUFC, for the purposes of the Rules" On 7th September Boris Johnson reportedly had this conversation with Lord Lister: Johnson: "Any news from Saudi?" Lister: "A call is being set up. The Newcastle deal will hopefully be signed this week." Johnson: "Brilliant." PIF clearly were still in for us and the O&D test process was still ongoing until at least September.

The CAT case is for either loss of the sale or loss of opportunity of immediate sale, it also seeks an injunction to require the PL to withdraw or reconsider it's decision. Which suggests their is still the opportunity of selling to the consortium, or was when the claim was submitted in May.

The media only had the public statement from PIF to go on. It's clear that it didn't end their formal interest, both court documents and leaks from within our government show that their involvement and the PL's consideration of the O&D test did continue beyond that public announcement, at least until September.

No, but they clearly were formally back in August-September, after their public statement that they were out. My point is that a public statement is not "formal" and the formal position is not known.

They made a public statement that their bid had been withdrawn, that is not formal. The fact is we just don't know what happened then, and what has happened since, formally but all of the formal elements of the deal that information is publicly available about (the holding companies and £150m loan agreement) are still in place and we know from court documents that the Saudi's interest continued until at least September.

You missed part of their response... "We've checked that Mr Masters was sitting at a fully DSE compliant workstation when he wrote his reply. Fair enough. NUST"

The Man City one also says pending, which it no longer is, so it might just be that ours hasn't been updated and the pending commercial court application it refers to is actually the Beloff challenge. Although, that doesn't seem likely since the CAT case hadn't even started when the Beloff decision was made.

I've done a bit of digging on a hunch and I think there is a third case, in addition to the CAT and arbitration, currently pending in the commercial court. Possibly challenging the enforceability of the PL's O&D test rules on the basis of restraint of trade is my hunch. Adam Lewis is the PL's QC in our cases and this is obviously ours: Club C v Premier League; Company D v Premier League Premier League Section X Arbitration, Commercial Court and Competition Appeals Tribunal. Current. Acts for the Premier League in an arbitration with a club challenging a Board decision. Commercial Court application pending. Competition law proceedings before the Competition Appeals Tribunal threatened in the same context. https://www.blackstonechambers.com/barristers/adam-lewis-qc/

In reality the position is no different to what it was before the CAT jurisdiction hearing was listed, in fact the hearing is much sooner than expected by people who did a bit of research on the process and weren't taken in by Keith's bullshit.

End of September is actually sooner than I had expected for the jurisdiction hearing.

Keith knows fuck all, he was saying that the PL had already lost their jurisdiction challenge before today.

I thought that at first but reading again the Director that would bound by the rules would be the KSA, not Al-Rumayyan himself if he were authorised to sign on the KSA's behalf. So it doesn't really seem to resolve the issue for us, which is that the KSA don't want to be subject to the PL's rules.

That bit seems to possibly be more of a response to the ESL. It also requires any director that is involved in any other football organisation to disclose that and what is discussed at their meetings.

I'm not sure that's good for us though. Aside from the new stuff that seems be in response to our takeover, they've also made changes that seam to mean the directors of the ESL clubs would be disqualified from being directors.

The PL published a new handbook on Friday with some interesting looking changes to the O&D test. They’ve introduced an “owners’ charter” which has to be submitted by each director 14 days before the start of each season. Although the rules are silent on what the Owners’ Charter actually is, “Owners’ Charter means the document of that name agreed by Clubs” is all the rules say. It also requires that “where the Director is not a natural person, it must ensure that the individual signing the Owners’ Charter on its behalf is duly authorised to do so.” And there is a new guidance note added to the O&D test in Section F that states "where these Rules impose an obligation on a Director (or proposed Director) to submit a Declaration (whether under this Rule F.2 or Rule F.24) and the Director (or proposed Director) concerned is not a natural person, it must ensure that the individual signing the Declaration on its behalf is duly authorised to do so and to bind that Director to comply with the obligations placed upon it by these Rules." They have also altered the definition of "Connected Person" (which is a term used in the all important definition of "Control") to include reference to circumstances involving a person who is not a natural person. No idea what that means for us, but it seems that the PL are concerned that their previous rules didn't deal clearly enough with circumstances where a person taking control is not a natural person i.e. a company or state.

The statement was a joint statement by the club and PL, that suggests some element of agreement.

I think the fact that he sent all of his evidence to the club's legal team only after the clubs case was submitted and didn't receive a penny for his time says everything you need to know about the quality and usefulness of his evidence.

Something I hadn't realised before tonight was that the statement the club released on Monday was in fact a joint statement by the club and the PL. That definitely seems to suggest a thawing in the relationship between the club and PL.

That's absolute guesswork too, no one really knows what the issue with disclosure was. The arbitration has been watertight so far, no ITK or journalist has accurately predicted anything, everything that has been revealed has been completely out of the blue.