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[TK-421]

Full story from the Guardian...

 

Quote

Angry Premier League clubs demand emergency meeting on Newcastle deal

Other 19 clubs united in opposition to Newcastle takeover

Clubs concerned Premier League’s brand could be damaged

Exclusive by David Hytner and Peter Walker

 @DaveHytner

Fri 8 Oct 2021 19.30 BST

 

Angry clubs have targeted the Premier League with complaints about the Newcastle United takeover and are pushing for an emergency meeting next week.

The 19 other top-flight clubs are understood to be united in opposition to a Saudi-led consortium being allowed to buy out Mike Ashley and are demanding to know what changed for it to be waved through and why they received so little notice.

 

The demand for the emergency meeting is not so much an attempt to derail the takeover – because it is too late – rather a reflection of how high feelings are running.

Clubs have expressed concern that the Premier League’s brand could be damaged by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) taking an 80% stake in Newcastle, although eyebrows will be raised at this given the identity of other owners in the division. The deal has been fiercely criticised by human rights groups, especially as PIF – the state’s sovereign wealth fund – is overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

 

The arrival of a new set of billionaire owners is bound to have upset clubs who see on the horizon a far more competitive Newcastle and the prospect of St James’ Park wealth inflating transfer fees and wages.

 

The league’s chief executive, Richard Masters, and chairman, Gary Hoffman, have received complaints from clubs who had no idea the Newcastle takeover was about to be approved. It was first proposed in March 2020 but the consortium withdrew its bid four months later amid growing fears it would fail the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test.

The subject was not on the agenda at the most recent shareholders’ meeting two weeks ago. The league effectively blocked the deal last year and it was said last week at a competition appeals tribunal (CAT) involving Ashley and the league that arbitration proceedings to decide the matter were scheduled to begin on 3 January.

It is understood clubs learned via the media on Wednesday of the impending takeover and received confirmation from the league by email at 5.18pm on Thursday. That is the time at which the league released a statement saying the deal was done and that it had “received legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control Newcastle United”.

The league would no doubt point out that issues of confidentiality and legality prevented the sharing of Newcastle developments. Furthermore, the league board’s nominated powers over the owners’ and directors’ test were endorsed after a vote among the clubs.

 

The league’s QC, Adam Lewis, had said at the CAT that the deal could go ahead – albeit there was no suggestion it would happen so swiftly. “If the arbitration decides KSA [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] is not a director then the transaction can and will go ahead, with no question of the owners’ and directors’ test being applied to KSA,” Lewis said.

Since then Saudi Arabia has lifted its ban on the Qatar-based beIN Sports and promised to close pirate websites showing Premier League football in the country. Crucially, it also convinced the league the state would not be involved in the day-to-day running of Newcastle. There is considerable unease among clubs as to whether this will prove to be the case.

The Newcastle takeover has drawn reaction from the political arena, too. Labour, while arguing that the deal will “trouble many fans”, has not called for it to be paused, and is instead demanding a new system of regulation as soon as possible, most likely based on the ongoing review into football governance led by the Tory MP and former sports minister Tracey Crouch.

Alison McGovern, the shadow sports minister, said: “This is ultimately a failure in the way that football is governed. Labour has called for a tough independent regulator for many years and the action we hope will come from the publication of the Crouch review cannot come soon enough.”

 

Downing Street and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have maintained a deliberately hands-off approach, with officials insisting that it is a matter for the Premier League, and that since the UK trades with Saudi Arabia it would be anomalous to ban the takeover of a football club.

 

[The Bonk]

5 minutes ago, Joe_F said:

Aye, fuck right off

 

 

 

[relámpago blanco]

Just now, andyman said:

 

Haha, I know right? I wish my stomach would inform me in good time that I'm gonna need to take a shit after the movie at the cinema has run for five minutes, but no, it happens when it happens. Hold your butts, squeeze your ass cheeks. Deal with it.

Always tells me when I'm at Junction 10 on the m25 clockwise in heavy traffic.  It's why I only have leather seats now.

[The Bonk]

YES!!! I'm soooooooo here for all the backlash from other clubs.  

[andyman]

Just now, relámpago blanco said:

Always tells me when I'm at Junction 10 on the m25 clockwise in heavy traffic.  It's why I only have leather seats now.

 

[Fantail Breeze]

 

 

Unlucky lads.

 

Shame they weren’t this united about supporting struggling lower league clubs during the pandemic.

[Awaymag]

Buckle up Toon fans.......I think we are in for one hell of ride!  Loving it!

[Newcastle Fan]

The Guardian will be our number one enemy going forward, they absolutely hate all the countries in the GCC region

[OpenC]

Everybody hates us already

 

We've done fuck all of any consequence and we're already massively despised

[mouldy_uk]

3 minutes ago, The Bonk said:

 

‘so little notice’

 

[joeyt]

2 minutes ago, Newcastle Fan said:

The Guardian will be our number one enemy going forward, they absolutely hate all the countries in the GCC region

David Squires is going to rip us to pieces next week

[Newcastle Fan]

Also saying all 19 clubs is a bit of a lie, Man City are owned by UAE's investment fund and are one of Saudi's closest allies, i seriously doubt they will raise any complaints about it.

 

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by Newcastle Fan

[Dancing Brave]

2 minutes ago, OpenC said:

Everybody hates us already

 

We've done fuck all of any consequence and we're already massively despised

How did that Millwall song go again 

[Skeletor]

5 minutes ago, The Bonk said:

 

 

 

Might as well take the chance to plug one of my songs which has relevant lyrics

 

 

 

Well then brother I'll be the villain if that's what you really think of me. I'll be the villain if that's what you really need me to be. Oh brother, well then I guess the heroes of yesterday are dead today.

[Miggys First Goal]

They’re unhappy because we’ll no longer be one of the whipping boys of the PL. 

[The Bonk]

4 minutes ago, mouldy_uk said:

‘so little notice’

 

 

"We didn't have a chance to try to scupper the deal!" 

Cunts.  

[JeffJ]

Sheikh Mansour? 

 

All that Bein Sports Qatari TV Cash? 

 

Newcastle & PIF? 

[OCK]

9 minutes ago, The Bonk said:

 

 

"Well what changed was we shit our pants when we realised that we might have to go to an actual court and not the little lego one Daniel Levy made that we called Arbitration. If we had to publically admit to making shit up as we went along or asking the Glaziers what was best, then well... fuck you"

[B-more Mag]

PL should offer them arbitration. 

[Optimistic Nut]

Would they protest about the brand if we’d been sold to a poor North Korean company?

[Fantail Breeze]

Mad how we’ve waited 18 months just for someone to turn a tv channel on  

[Joey Linton]

Just now, B-more Mag said:

PL should offer them arbitration. 

Pencilled in for July 2028

[Dr Jinx]

I’ll tell you why, last Wednesday they were backed into a corner during that Jurisdiction hearing. The 3 chairs took in the evidence along with everything else that’s been disclosed up to now.

 

They will have given the PL notice that they would have indeed lost not only the hearing but the case overall so just go and settle.

 

By the weekend both legal teams worked out a way so that every party came out of it saving face.

 

This whole thing about legally binding assurances? They had that to begin with. The PL backed down in spectacular fashion. It’s a huge loss for them.

 

AS was in Newcastle on Monday or Tuesday, by that time the funds had been transferred to Ashley.

 

Few last minute checks and singing of contracts and here we are now.

 

The PL never wanted to allow the takeover but they simply didn’t have a choice in the end and I think Staveley was incredibly diplomatic in thanking them for their hard work in reaching a resolution, there’s no way it was amicable.

 

All this virtue signalling from other clubs and other supporters. As if they really care about human rights, they care about their clubs ability to win things and it’s about to be seriously threatened.

[Guest HTT II]

I see the argument that NUFC fans supporting NUFC under PIF is basically supporting a murderous regime too, yet the legacy clubs fans can still support their clubs despite their clubs actively and wantingly trying to destroy not just the game in this country, but the game in general all around the world. They can all fuck off, sour grapes.
 

I’m concerned about who we are owned about and honestly, I’m not fussed about going to games ever again, I’ll happily be an armchair fan watching and cheering on the team via TV and maybe, just maybe I’ll take the boys to the odd cup game, but for me I’m happy first of all that Ashley is gone (this is the victory) and secondly as bad as the SA regime is, this is their culture and has been for however long and it’s not up to me nor down to me to say hey, you can’t be doing that.

 

Of course I don’t want to see people beheaded, gay people tortured, women have no rights etc. but they look at ‘us’ and don’t want us drinking, don’t want us being topless or whatever. It’s a clash of cultures and customs and religions and other shit. If we want SA to stop being a bad egg, it’s down to our government to say NO, we won’t deal with you unless you do x y and z and it’s upto companies like like FB, Starbucks or whoever to say NO you can’t buy a stake unless you do x y and z too.
 

But that hasn’t, won’t and never will happen because it’s all about money/ It’s not down to NUFC fans, or me or you or any individual  to say, sorry, you can’t come and buy our club unless you stop murdering journos or whatever. As AS said, it’s our club, they are just custodians. That’s my take, it’s always been our club and always will be because without the fans there is no club, just a few trade marks, player registrations and a fucking post code where some business is registered to.

 

We also have to remember, the middle east are behind the western world in lots of ways and as much as we would like them to catch up ASAP, that again is not how the dynamics of the world works. In the 60s in America black boys and girls couldn’t go to white schools, or could eat in a restaurant or get a bus with white people. In the 40s, 6m Jews and others were murdered by the German state. We waged war in Iraq on lies. It wasn’t that long ago we would behead people here in England, hang them, torture them. Indeed our own stadium is built on the Gallows…

 

Don’t throw stones in a glass house…

 

It’s s good to have this discussion because it’s needed, but not at the doorstep of a football supporter who just wants to watch his/her team play a game of footy.

[Kanji]

that article is pure trash hahahaha