Jackie Broon

I think the government will step in more forcefully behind the scenes eventually. There's just too much political influence involved in this with the Rubens and Saudis involved for the government to allow this to continue, or for the PL to be allowed to effectively decide that the ruler of Saudi Arabia is a criminal. I was involved in something where a government minister intervened seemingly just because someone wrote them a letter saying they'd once met Margaret Thatcher FFS. There's no way that this government will just stand back and let that happen.

It's all looking increasingly dodgy from the PL's point of view. They have one decision to make, whether or not any of the proposed directors have been convicted (or would be likely to be convicted in this country, whether or not there has been an actual conviction) of an offence that would carry a sentence of over 12 months, or involves dishonesty, or is a specified offence (including copyright theft). I'm sure there is probably some room for interpretation either way, but the test is simply whether a convictable offence has been committed. From the outside what appears to be happening is that the PL have raised concerned about the piracy issues and are refusing to make a decision until they have assurances that it will be resolved in some way. However, if they believe such an offence has been committed by the directors the only option available to them is for them to fail the test, retrospectively resolving the matter wouldn't make that offence go away.

This discussion makes me feel nostalgic for those naive days when I was convinced it would be announced on my birthday in mid may.

No doubt about it. It's more of a problem than many people realize. Would you say its centred in particular demographics or completely widespread? I've been fortunate that from the age of 11 I was brought up in a rural area (village just outside Hexham) and apart from 6 years in Liverpool have spent my adult years in rural parts of Wales / a small town. Yes there are the occasional ignorant idiots but in general I haven't encountered any real racism. Of course I know its out there, but have I just been lucky/blind to it or is it concentrated in cities (for example)? In my experience racism towards Asian people, particularly of Pakistani origin, is absolutely endemic in this country.

Ironically had Labour been in power the deal would likely be dead and massive potential investment in our area along with it. Labour would do exactly the same. In fact Blair's government discontinued a criminal investigation into BAE Systems' slush fund for bribing Saudi officials on grounds that it was not in the public interest, and was later found to have acted unlawfully.

From that FootballLaw article: If Qatar are basing the opinion on this report it certainly is desperate The opinion of a slik > a solicitor on twitter, although I'm sure PIF have Queen's Counsel giving exactly the opposite opinion. It's not from Twitter, it's from the FootballLaw website, its written by a Barrister with experience in sports law. I'm sure other opinions can be found, I'm just saying that reading him go through the report in that article it's hard to see what in their is against the tests. Case of mistaken identity. Anyway, my point was more about law being grey rather than black and white.

From that FootballLaw article: If Qatar are basing the opinion on this report it certainly is desperate The opinion of a slik > a solicitor on twitter, although I'm sure PIF have Queen's Counsel giving exactly the opposite opinion.

It's Saudi Arabia who are blocking access to Qatar's services, which is part of a wider diplomatic conflict over Qatar's ties to Iran.

He didn't say anything of the sort. He was interviewing Roberto Azevêdo from the WTO who said there would be a ruling, but wouldn't be drawn on when or if it had already been made, and said it would be between the two countries to come to a resolution.

hadn't realised Ashley had killed a man or ran an illegal streaming service. Neither have the PIF directors, the Reubens, or Staveley. Although Amanada is up in court so count vouch 100% for her, but I don't think she has. PIF directors have absolutely killed thousands of people If that's the case, then surely the PL officials would have ruled them unsuitable owners and directors straight off the bat. Well it is the case, but the PL probably don't really care about that, they clearly do care that Saudi Arabia has been stealing their product from them.

hadn't realised Ashley had killed a man or ran an illegal streaming service. Neither have the PIF directors, the Reubens, or Staveley. Although Amanada is up in court so count vouch 100% for her, but I don't think she has. MbS is the chairman of PIF, he's the de facto head of state in what is one of the few remaining absolute monarchies in the world.

All boils down to the question, are PIF a separate legal entity; and if they are, then are they directly part in anyway with BeoutQ If that were all it boils down to it wouldn't have taken this long to reach a conclusion.

But they will care about potentially pissing off our arms industry's biggest customer.

Didn't he get into bother a few months back for something he put on Twitter. He got caught on camera saying derogatory stuff about Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in the wake of his death.

The moral authority of a guy who posted about the odour of a strippers fanny. Also "playing the upper card", I think that's a mixture of at least two, maybe three, different idioms. None of which are applicable to what you seem to be trying to say Stiffy.

Money talks but Qatar have arguably more. Certainly they are capable to offer more to the PL. According to a colleague, you can watch BeIN legally from KSA through their app or other 3rd party apps. Apparently loads of people watch it this way. Last year, I spent few days in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain - they are also part of the blockade - but BeIN's channels (and Al-Jazeera) were widely available in hotels and bars and it certainly wasn't beoutQ signal Just interested, how do Qatar have arguably more financial power when Saudi Arabia's economy appears to be roughly three to four times larger by every measure? Not every measure though.. The universally accepted one for economic efficiency - GDP PPP is twice the amount of Saudi's and ranks them 1st worldwide. KSA definitely have more historical trade significance and potential though but very little foreign expertise in anything apart from oil, construction and warfare. The main difference is that Qatar is designed to be an investor's heaven. It's the most developed, most open to western influence of all Muslim countries. The reforms MBS is attempting to push now were done in Qatar in the 90s. KSA, on the other hand is still a near-complete black box. They simply don't allow any form of foreign independent monitoring on any topic - juridical system, human rights, oil reserves, piracy accusations. In other words - an investor's hell. Wikipedia, I know, but these lists of GPD PPP don't put Qatar anywhere near first, around 50th actually, with Saudi Arabia around 15th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)#:~:text=GDP%20comparisons%20using%20PPP%20are,which%20may%20distort%20the%20real Surely what is being discussed is the power of the state of Saudi Arabia to purchase something rather than to attract inward investment. Per capita, of course. Qatar is a dwarf territory compared to KSA, after all. GPD PPP per capita is not really a measure of a nation's overall purchasing power. Depending on whether the data is coming from Luxembourg and Lichtenstein are above Qatar in terms of GPD PPP per capita, that doesn't mean that they'd have the ability to compete financially with Qatar, or Saudi Arabia, as a nation. It's not simply a question of purchase power though - even the poorest countries are rich enough to afford the PL rights, if they had to. You're picking on just a tiny bit of what I said. Al-Jazeera (BeIN) is a mastodon media empire in worldwide terms. Saudi Arabia can't create a product to rival this from scratch, if they could - they would have done it a long time ago. It's simply unrealistic, to expect Riyadh to become a media hub, while foreign journalists are not allowed access to the country. I doubt that would be part of the consideration for the sale of broadcasting rights, only how much money a buyer is prepared/able to offer for them. Btw, I'm not trying to be argumentative, I've just been comforting myself with the idea that Saudi Arabia are so wealthy and influential that it's very likely that the issues will be resolved one way or another. I've seen a few people saying that Qatar are now as or more influential and wealthy than Saudi Arabia, but I can't see any real evidence of that. From what I can tell Qatar seem have isolated themselves to some extent within the region and internationally due to the extent of their ties with Iran. Saudi Arabia seems to be far more influential politically and financially, internationally, regionally and particularly in the UK.

Money talks but Qatar have arguably more. Certainly they are capable to offer more to the PL. According to a colleague, you can watch BeIN legally from KSA through their app or other 3rd party apps. Apparently loads of people watch it this way. Last year, I spent few days in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain - they are also part of the blockade - but BeIN's channels (and Al-Jazeera) were widely available in hotels and bars and it certainly wasn't beoutQ signal Just interested, how do Qatar have arguably more financial power when Saudi Arabia's economy appears to be roughly three to four times larger by every measure? Not every measure though.. The universally accepted one for economic efficiency - GDP PPP is twice the amount of Saudi's and ranks them 1st worldwide. KSA definitely have more historical trade significance and potential though but very little foreign expertise in anything apart from oil, construction and warfare. The main difference is that Qatar is designed to be an investor's heaven. It's the most developed, most open to western influence of all Muslim countries. The reforms MBS is attempting to push now were done in Qatar in the 90s. KSA, on the other hand is still a near-complete black box. They simply don't allow any form of foreign independent monitoring on any topic - juridical system, human rights, oil reserves, piracy accusations. In other words - an investor's hell. Wikipedia, I know, but these lists of GPD PPP don't put Qatar anywhere near first, around 50th actually, with Saudi Arabia around 15th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)#:~:text=GDP%20comparisons%20using%20PPP%20are,which%20may%20distort%20the%20real Surely what is being discussed is the power of the state of Saudi Arabia to purchase something rather than to attract inward investment. Per capita, of course. Qatar is a dwarf territory compared to KSA, after all. GPD PPP per capita is not really a measure of a nation's overall purchasing power. Depending on whether the data is coming from Luxembourg and Lichtenstein are above Qatar in terms of GPD PPP per capita, that doesn't mean that they'd have the ability to compete financially with Qatar, or Saudi Arabia, as a nation.

Money talks but Qatar have arguably more. Certainly they are capable to offer more to the PL. According to a colleague, you can watch BeIN legally from KSA through their app or other 3rd party apps. Apparently loads of people watch it this way. Last year, I spent few days in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain - they are also part of the blockade - but BeIN's channels (and Al-Jazeera) were widely available in hotels and bars and it certainly wasn't beoutQ signal Just interested, how do Qatar have arguably more financial power when Saudi Arabia's economy appears to be roughly three to four times larger by every measure? Not every measure though.. The universally accepted one for economic efficiency - GDP PPP is twice the amount of Saudi's and ranks them 1st worldwide. KSA definitely have more historical trade significance and potential though but very little foreign expertise in anything apart from oil, construction and warfare. The main difference is that Qatar is designed to be an investor's heaven. It's the most developed, most open to western influence of all Muslim countries. The reforms MBS is attempting to push now were done in Qatar in the 90s. KSA, on the other hand is still a near-complete black box. They simply don't allow any form of foreign independent monitoring on any topic - juridical system, human rights, oil reserves, piracy accusations. In other words - an investor's hell. Wikipedia, I know, but these lists of GPD PPP don't put Qatar anywhere near first, around 50th actually, with Saudi Arabia around 15th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)#:~:text=GDP%20comparisons%20using%20PPP%20are,which%20may%20distort%20the%20real Surely what is being discussed is the power of the state of Saudi Arabia to purchase something rather than to attract inward investment.

Money talks but Qatar have arguably more. Certainly they are capable to offer more to the PL. According to a colleague, you can watch BeIN legally from KSA through their app or other 3rd party apps. Apparently loads of people watch it this way. Last year, I spent few days in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain - they are also part of the blockade - but BeIN's channels (and Al-Jazeera) were widely available in hotels and bars and it certainly wasn't beoutQ signal Just interested, how do Qatar have arguably more financial power when Saudi Arabia's economy appears to be roughly three to four times larger by every measure?

This is another cause for concern. The WTO report carries a lot of weight and the PL's hands will be clean if they base their decision on it. I realise I'm spreading negativity like fuck today but from browsing through similar WTO reports it seems that the panel's decision will be based not solely on juridical (technological in this case) evidence but on political findings too. This is something that lacks in previous third-party analyses against beoutQ and can further incriminate Saudi officials. If there's evidence of course. The Guardian claimed that it'll contain categorical evidence of government involvement. The report will be published here: https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds567_e.htm There's a similar report summary (understandably not very favourable to SA at all) on the trade-related aspects of the blockade here - https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds528_e.htm As I said a few pages back, I'm sure that the political fallout of that decision would be too great for the government to allow to happen (I know they don't have any direct influence over the decision, but there will definitely be behind the scenes influence). Our government's diplomatic and financial interests are too tied up with Saudi Arabia to allow that to happen.

The UK has deep diplomatic and financial ties with Saudi Arabia, our government has turned a blind eye to bribery, human rights abuses, support of terrorism and so on for decades to keep their money flowing into our arms industry etc. The diplomatic consequences of the Premier League ruling that the nation's de facto head of state is too dishonest to own a Premier League club would be vast, I can't believe that it would be allowed to happen (although the Saudi state has done many things that could, by any reasonable definition, be considered to be dishonest). I'm sure it will go through.

How ? That letter gives absolutely nothing away. I'm very used to writing letters like that, trust me, it says get to fuck in no uncertain terms.

It's 'precedent' Stiffy, and it seems pretty likely that the WTO report has had some influence on the delay in the FA's decision.

And that is probably off the back of Newcastle supporters making "pointless", "embarrassing" posts about the effect of the limbo the PL has put the club in on the club and its supporters. If enough people post on social media / write to the PL about it, we do have the power to affect the narrative and at least make it more uncomfortable for the PL to keep the club in limbo.

Does this WTO report carry any clout in terms of whether they can reject the takeover based on what is said in it? Have a look at the twitter link I posted previous page as it gives an insight to this Just this second read it. I take it as the WTO report is nothing to worry about? You can only really go off what he was saying and he worked there 15 years so obviously knows the 'ins and out'. Thought this part was particularly interesting: Still a bit confusing as to what he's saying but I take it the WTO report means f*** all. If so, what the hell are they waiting for it for? Exactly, but more to the point in question can the Premier League use this report 'legally' anyway to knock back the takeover. 'Legally' there doesn't seem to be any requirement in the OD test for there to be an actual conviction or other ruling with legal status. In theory the PL could take into account any evidence that they deem to be appropriate, however, they'd have to be sure it's robust enough to stand up to legal challenge if they were to reject on that basis.