Jackie Broon

Ashley said the O&D test had been refused in September, which the PL then denied. The PL's 'decision letter' from 12th June 2020 is included in the high court judgement. It basically says that they had made a provisional conclusion that the KSA would be a person in control of the club but would take into account any other submissions from the club before making a final decision, after which they would go forward with the test on the other directors if that decision were that the KSA would not be in control. But it seems that they never actually made that final decision and instead insisted on arbitration. "From the information you have provided, [PLL] is provisionally minded to conclude that KSA satisfies both elements in the test for “Control” over [NUFC] through its control over PIF (which, as noted, recognises that it will be a Director). In summary: 1. As to management, … PIF’s directors are appointed by Royal Decree, and its current board is almost exclusively composed of KSA Government Ministers. The PIF Law puts [it] expressly under the direction of … a KSA Government Ministry. Its function is to serve the national interest of KSA. 2. As to ownership, it would appear that PIF is state-owned, and that it manages only state-owned assets. Again, if you disagree with either of these provisional conclusions, we would welcome your reasoned response. Following receipt of any submissions, [PLL] will fully consider them before reaching a final decision on the issues. If [PLL] then decides that KSA will not become a Director, then it will proceed to a decision on the application of Section [F] to the individuals who have been declared, including PIF. However, should the Board decide that KSA is also to be regarded as a future Director, then there will have to be a declaration in respect of KSA and the Board’s decision on the application of [Section F] will have to be made in respect of KSA also.”

I think he's probably wrong that a new O&D test submission would be needed, I think the PL would have to continue with the one that was submitted if they lose the arbitration, and/or that it would take a long time. But he is right that the test was never carried out on the other proposed directors, that was confirmed in the high court judgement.

PL FFP is over the past three accounting years, allowing a loss of up to £105m over those three years, but 19/20 is excluded from that. Could we possibly be pushing losses into that accounting period to help with FFP?

They're obsessed with making up stuff to fool Burnsie on there, it will be a photoshop I think.

Even discounting the fact that the PL haven't followed their own process and all of the other behind the scenes lobbing and delaying shenanigans, the O&D test is clearly vulnerable to challenge under competition law. The PL is essentially in a monopoly position and PL clubs are businesses competing against each other in a closed market. The O&D test restricts access to that market and so restrict competition within it. The judge will probably ask why is it necessary to restrict access to people who wouldn’t be barred from being a director of any other company. The PL will probably give reasons like ‘football is the national sport, reputation, soft power’ etc. I would think the judge will conclude that it’s the role of government to legislate to control ownership if necessary for those reasons, but as it stands the PL are subject to competition law and the O&D test unacceptably restricts competition by restricting access to people who could own any other business and requires people to become directors when they wouldn't in any other circumstance. I'm convinced that the PL will lose the CAT case, although I'm not so convinced that will deliver the takeover.

You're right, but that would have been a big risk to take and they clearly didn't want to take it.

Not that it would ever actually happen, but the PL can technically suspend the club from the league until the club is sold: F.9. If a Director who receives a notice under the provisions of Rule F.6.1 fails to resign and his Club fails to procure his removal from office as required, or if a Club proceeds with the appointment as a Director of a Person to whom Rule F.4 applies despite having received a notice under the provisions of Rule F.6.2, the Board shall have power to suspend the Club by giving to it notice in writing to that effect

That's if the CAT case hasn't already killed the whole concept of an owners and directors test. In which case the government will have to legislate for it if they want special controls to be in place on football club ownership over and above those of any other company.

My worry is that I don't think the CAT case is a route to the takeover, it will probably take too long. I think the takeover hangs on the arbitration and I'm less confident about that going our way.

I don't think the CAT rules don't state that there "will" be a hearing, their guidance (not the rules) states that there will usually be a hearing. Which suggests that there would be the option for it to be decided on the papers. Given that it seems to solely relate to the arbitration covering materially identical issues, it seems conceivable that the CAT would want to make a decision, at least to stay the case, before the arbitration takes place.

I don't think it's that black and white. The PL's challenge is that the arbitration is dealing with materially identical issues, it seems the most likely outcome if their challenge were successful is that the CAT case is just stayed until the outcome of the arbitration, rasher than thrown out. If the PL's challenge fails / has failed, I don't think that really says much about the strength of the club's evidence, but it might indicate that the scope of the case is such that the club could lose the arbitration and still have a viable anti-competition case.

I think the 28th for the start of arbitration came from Sheikh_of_Araby on not606 originally, my feeling is that his first post saying he'd heard that the PL's jurisdiction challenge had been dismissed was genuine (not necessarily correct, but I think he'd genuinely been told that by someone) but everything he's said since then has just been to show up twitter ITKs / cover his tracks after he saw how far that spread.

Nice.

Ashley's helicopter just stopped off in central London now heading north, possibly Newcastle bound? https://www.flightradar24.com/GMOAL/282ec4e0

They're back. https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=7101e3

The high court documents show that was not the case, they didn't even start the O&D test for any of the proposed directors. And they would have grounds to fail them on, that they hadn't disclosed another person teat the PL had determined would have control of the club.

I remember seeing that too. Either the PL have been inconsistent in their position (which is not beyond the realms of possibility) or the stories were wrong.

The PL didn't even start assessing the declared directors under the O&D test because they said the KSA should be declared before they do that. The PL's preliminary decision letter, from 12/06/2020, included in the high court judgement confirmed that: "Following receipt of any submissions, [PLL] will fully consider them before reaching a final decision on the issues. If [PLL] then decides that KSA will not become a Director, then it will proceed to a decision on the application of Section [F] to the individuals who have been declared, including PIF. However, should the Board decide that KSA is also to be regarded as a future Director, then there will have to be a declaration in respect of KSA and the Board’s decision on the application of [Section F] will have to be made in respect of KSA also." I think that's procedurally incorrect from the wording of their rules, which state that the rules apply to any declared directors from the point that they are declared, but that's how they did it.

The arbitration is to decide whether the KSA should be disclosed as a director by virtue of being a person in control of the club. If the club win the arbitration the KSA don't need to be disclosed but, yes, PIF and the rest of the consortium would then have to go through the O&D test and that could find grounds to fail them. Although, that seems very unlikely and dangerous for the PL to do given the CAT case hanging over them.

The PL's rules state that the arbitration decision is final and binding, but they haven't got a great track record of following their own rules.

It's a single issue, I doubt the hearing would be more than a week. Not sure whether it was true but I've seen someone claim that this is the arbitration service that is being used https://www.sportresolutions.com/services/arbitration their website says: "Arbitration awards are normally given in writing, with detailed reasons, within three weeks of the conclusion of the hearing. They are distributed by e-mail to the parties. The parties may request a verbal decision with written reasons to follow if the matter is urgent. E.g. where an important sporting event is directly related to the decision." The FA and EFL use them so it seems feasible that the PL would too.

The only thing we know officially is that the arbitration hearing is in July. Although, there seems to be an ITK consensus that it starts on monday. In relation to the CAT case the PL's jurisdiction challenge was submitted on 11th June and there should be a date set for the jurisdiction hearing anytime soon.

They'll be exposed in the CAT case.

Generally without prejudice settlement discussions can't be used as evidence, but there are exceptions to that, such as where it shows that the case being defended is dishonest or fraudulent.