Could The Premier League Be Forced To Remove Newcastle United's Owners
Premier League chief Richard Masters was just grilled by a Government committee over the recent implication in a US Court that Newcastle's Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan is a member of the Saudi government. But would this qualify as a breach of the league's ownership rules, and could that spell trouble for The Toon?
Transcript
00:00 Newcastle United are potentially facing a fresh investigation into their ownership after
00:07 an American court case revealed they could be in breach of the league's ownership rules.
00:11 And if that's the case, the Premier League could be forced to remove the owners from
00:15 the club.
00:16 Good morning everybody, Adam Cleary 442 here and my word, that's an enormous headline,
00:21 isn't it?
00:22 Some 18 months after the Premier League finally waved through the controversial takeover of
00:25 Newcastle United Football Club by the Saudi Investment Fund, PIF, they may now be having
00:30 to reopen that investigation to see if they, well, shouldn't have done that.
00:35 And if they are found to be in breach of these rules, the Premier League would be forced
00:38 to remove these owners from the club.
00:41 Potentially.
00:42 And if you're sitting there quite understandably going, "What?
00:45 How has this just seemingly happened?"
00:47 Well, it's because of golf.
00:49 Now just quickly before we get into this, the one thing you need to know going in is
00:52 one of the Premier League's ownership rules is that nation states, governments are not
00:56 allowed to have any direct involvement in the running of a football club.
01:00 And one of the things that initially stopped the Newcastle United takeover going through
01:03 was that the Premier League believed PIF, the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia,
01:07 was affiliated with the government.
01:09 Now I could do a whole other video on the relationship between PIF and the Saudi state,
01:12 but all you really need to know is that relationship is murky and complicated and you can understand
01:18 why the Premier League were like, "Ooh, don't know about that."
01:21 Because both PIF and the Saudi government gave the Premier League legally binding assurances
01:25 that they were separate entities and that the Saudi state wouldn't have any involvement
01:29 in the running of the club.
01:31 The Premier League were like, "Okay, sounds fine.
01:33 Off you go."
01:34 But right now there is a major court case in America between the PGA, which you've never
01:37 heard of it, is like they're the golf lads in America, like the NBA of walking around
01:41 a big field and putting a tiny ball in an even tinier cup, and Live Golf.
01:46 And Live Golf, just like Newcastle United, is a major part of PIF's investment portfolio.
01:51 They own that as well and they want it to be as big as Christmas.
01:54 The PGA are understandably quite unhappy about that, so have taken them to court for...
01:58 I'll just skip through it all...
01:59 A lot of things.
02:00 And this is where it starts to concern Newcastle United and the Premier League, as this man,
02:05 Yasser Al Rumayyan, has been named by Live Golf's own lawyers as a sitting minister of
02:11 the government with sovereign immunity.
02:13 And if you're sitting there thinking, "Adam, what's wrong with that?
02:15 People are allowed to be sitting ministers of the government.
02:16 People are allowed to have sovereign immunity."
02:18 It's just a thing.
02:19 Well, if you didn't already click on, that man is Newcastle United's chairman.
02:23 And the bottom line is, you cannot be giving the Premier League cast-iron assurances that
02:27 PIF has nothing to do with the government when the very head of PIF is a sitting government
02:33 minister.
02:34 Now, the thing is, that statement was made over a month ago, so where it gets particularly
02:36 relevant is that Richard Masters, you know him, head of the Premier League, got caught
02:40 up in the whole takeover storm the first time around.
02:42 This week, he has been sitting in a parliamentary committee with the Department of Digital,
02:46 Culture, Media and Sport.
02:47 Asked directly by Clive Efford MP whether these comments would prompt the Premier League
02:51 to reopen the investigation into Newcastle, Masters replied, "I can't really comment
02:55 on it, even to the point of saying, 'Is the Premier League investigating it?'
02:59 We can't really comment on it."
03:01 Obviously, we are completely aware, but the time when the Premier League comments publicly
03:04 on regulatory issues is when it's charged at the end of the process, when it's decided
03:09 whether any rule breaches have actually taken place, but the investigation process, we don't
03:13 talk about at all.
03:14 And if you're thinking, "This story and this headline is a fairly major leap from
03:17 the head of the Premier League simply saying no comment in a committee," it isn't.
03:21 In all likelihood, if either Masters or the Premier League were still satisfied with the
03:25 assurances they'd had that both PIF and the Saudi government were entirely separate
03:30 bodies, then the answer to that question is just, "Yeah, we've seen that, we're
03:34 aware of it, but we've already done our investigation into it, and we're happy there's
03:37 no direct involvement."
03:39 But he didn't say that.
03:40 He said, "I can't comment, because we don't comment on investigations if they're
03:44 running."
03:45 That is like you asking me, "Do I actually wear anything under this table?"
03:48 And me saying, "Unfortunately, I simply don't comment on whether or not I wear anything
03:52 under this table."
03:53 When what you'd want me to say is, "Yes, pants."
03:56 Richard Masters has already said in the past that if they do ever find evidence of state
04:00 involvement in the club, they can remove PIF as the owners.
04:04 Because in their eyes, the owners of the club would actually be the Saudi government, so
04:07 it would be the Saudi government who was subjected to the ownership test, which they would then
04:10 of course fail, because you're not allowed to own a football club in the Premier League
04:14 if you're a nation state.
04:16 So if this investigation is going on, which I've got to stress, at this point in time
04:19 there's been no confirmation that it actually is, you would imagine that then involves a
04:23 very long-winded process of going through all of this behind the scenes where nobody's
04:26 going to hear anything about it until they make a decision either way.
04:29 And just to wrap up, if you are any Cassie United fan and you're sitting there going,
04:32 "Whoa, this sounds pure, like, bad, disliked.
04:34 Do I need to worry about it at all?"
04:36 What do you think?
04:37 I would say, yeah, maybe a little bit, but we're literally not going to know until we
04:40 know, so just enjoy your life.
04:41 But yes, that is the news, thank you for joining us, I've been Adam Cleary, get me on Twitter
04:45 @AdamClearyCLERY.
04:46 The brand new 442 is due out imminently available in all good newsagents, and I'm assured, all
04:51 the crap ones as well, so do pick yourself up a copy of that.
04:54 But until the next time, hit the subscribe button on your way out, please, thank you
04:57 very much, love you, goodbye.