Premier League chief executive Richard Masters has told MPs he cannot comment on whether his organisation is investigating who has control of Newcastle and if it is re-examining its approval of the club’s Saudi takeover.
However, in a US court case, documents published last month described the PIF as “a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and PIF Governor and Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan as “a sitting minister of the government” with “sovereign immunity”.
The statements were made by lawyers representing LIV Golf, owned by the PIF, which also has a controlling stake in Newcastle.
Masters was asked about the documents by Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee member Clive Efford MP on Tuesday
“I can’t really comment on it,” said Masters.
“I mean, even to the point of saying, ‘Is the Premier League investigating it?’, we can’t really comment on it.
“Obviously we are completely aware. And you’re correct about the general nature of the undertakings that we received at the point of takeover. But I can’t really go into it at all.
“The time when the Premier League comments publicly on regulatory issues is when it’s charged, and at the end of the process when an independent panel has decided whether any rule breaches have actually taken place. The investigatory process, we don’t talk about at all.”
A San Francisco court approved the PGA Tour’s request to include Al-Rumayyan and the PIF as defendants in its lawsuit against LIV and ordered them to produce documents in the case.
However, the PIF challenged the order, arguing the fund and its governor Al-Rumayyan “are not ordinary third parties subject to basic discovery relevance standards”.
“The order is an extraordinary infringement on the sovereignty of a foreign state that is far from justified here,” a court document read.
“They are a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a sitting minister of the Saudi government, and they cannot be compelled to provide testimony and documents in a US proceeding unless their conduct – not LIV’s or anyone else’s – is truly the ‘gravamen’ of the case.”
The PIF initially withdrew from its takeover bid for Newcastle in July 2020 as a result of an “unforeseeably prolonged process”, before the deal was revived.
The takeover was only approved in October 2021 after the Premier League received “legally binding assurances” that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would not have any control over the club.
The dispute had centred over who would have controlling influence of Newcastle, and would therefore be subject to the league’s owners’ and directors’ test.
Masters told the BBC in November 2021 that if his organisation found evidence there was state involvement in the running of Newcastle “we can remove the consortium as owners of the club”.
The same year, Newcastle director Amanda Staveley told the BBC that the PIF was an “autonomous, commercially-driven investment fund.”
Masters denies football regulator delay tactics
Masters also denied a claim by former sports minister Tracey Crouch that his organisation tried to frustrate and delay landmark plans for an independent football regulator.
When asked if the Premier League’s approach had been to “kick it into the long grass”, Crouch told MPs: “I feel that is one of the tactics that is being deployed.”
Later she said: “I haven’t seen that willingness to engage and recognise the challenges and vulnerabilities of football governance from the Premier League.”
Crouch’s fan-led review made a number of recommendations – including an independent regulator – which the football governance White Paper was based on. And she said dealing with the Premier League throughout the process had been “disappointing” and “challenging, actually” and that she finds it “slightly confusing as to why the PL don’t support an independent regulator”.
However Masters later rejected suggestions of delay tactics, and said: “I don’t recognise that at all. We’ve done nothing else but engage with this process. There’s been an enormous amount of work.”
The plan for a regulator, recommended by the fan-led review last year, has been confirmed by the UK government. It aims to prevent clubs going out of business, give fans greater input and introduce a more stringent owners’ and directors’ test.
Premier League and EFL in shared revenue talks
Ensuring a fair distribution of money filters down the English football pyramid from the Premier League will be another of the independent regulator’s aims, and Masters told the hearing he and EFL counterpart Rick Parry were discussing that.
Putting the broadcast revenues of both leagues into a shared pot is one proposal being considered, Masters said, though ‘parachute payments’ to clubs relegated from the Premier League has been a sticking point for the two bodies.
“The Premier League has had exponential growth over the last 15 years, the EFL less so,” Masters said.
“A gap has built up. What I think we are trying to address is to close that gap, specifically between parachute and non-parachute clubs in the Championship.
“Part of Rick’s proposal is to look at a new mechanism to share revenue, which is called net media revenue.
“Essentially, you put our media revenue, the EFL’s media revenue in a pot, you take away costs and you divide it on a preordained formula which means that going forward, our growth is the EFL’s growth, and vice versa, so our success is shared, it aligns the two organisations in a different way and ensures that gaps don’t build up in the future.”
