The Premier League offered to appoint a referee to rule on the takeover of Newcastle United after months of being blocked at St James’ Park, according to a new report.
The proposal in the Daily Mail earlier this morning said money was not an issue for Amanda Staveley, the Reuben brothers and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, but senior executives weren’t happy with who would run United.
As the acquisition saga gained momentum earlier this year, Chronicle Live was told that Saudi Aramco chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan would be the figurehead at board level if the deal were to come through.
However, information emerging from the aftermath suggests that the Saudi Arabian state would have effectively run the show, and Premier League leaders believed that the public investment fund was no different from the state, whose chairman Mohammed bin Salman also de facto was the country.
This morning’s report in The Mail, a newspaper Mike Ashley previously used to get his message across to the national audience about Newcastle, reads: “Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, should be the main Saudi representative on the Newcastle Board, but the Premier League were unhappy, the direct link with the government was not made clear.
“This raised fears that the owners and directors would not pass the test.
“At that point, arbitration was proposed with the league to come to an independent decision on who Newcastle would belong to.”
Had the deal gone through and passed the test of the owners and directors, the debate on piracy would have been wide open again and the links between the Saudi state and TV piracy through the beoutQ network would have been a hot topic.
The Premier League has declined the opportunity to comment on why the deal collapsed from the offset.
Initially, Amanda Staveley had said in an interview with the US paywall subscription service Athletic: “The Premier League wanted the country Saudi to become the director of the football club.
“That’s what this is about.
“You were effectively saying, ‘PIF would not be the ultimate beneficial owner. We believe it is indeed the government, so we want the land to be the director.’
“The Premier League made it so difficult. It would be unprecedented.
“No country has ever become a club director.
“It is ridiculous.”
Still, there are new suggestions in the mail today that the Premier League simply asked, “Who would be the owner?”
Ashley has not yet publicly commented on the situation, but Martin Samuel says in his article today, “You can imagine he knows why the deal failed, and so will the consortium.”
“They will certainly know what the Premier League asked for and how to proceed from there. Still, they let the champions take the heat and the petitioners play around silly.”
“It’s a very simple question: who owns Newcastle?
“It shouldn’t take anyone months to answer that.”
The consortium’s London PR firm Smithfields has yet to respond to the new proposals.
Back on Tyneside, the search for a simple explanation – on file – from the Premier League continues, with Wansbeck MP Ian Lavery submitting a motion to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee at the request of Richard Masters and the Premier’s chiefs League provides clarify to fans why everything went wrong.
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