Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
The consortium attempting to take over Newcastle United withdrew their bid for the club. The end of this saga is a win-win for football and its fans.
On Thursday, the group headed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and fronted by PCP Capital Partners and Reuben Brothers ended their £300 million deal to purchase Newcastle United from its embattled owner, Mike Ashley. This agreement had been agreed upon in April.
The original deal had been met with a mix of excitement from fans desperate to see the Mike Ashley regime end and fear from others concerned about the linkages between the PIF and the state of Saudi Arabia.
The PIF issued a statement announcing their withdrawal from the agreement stating, “During the unforeseeably prolonged process, the commercial agreement between the investment group and the club’s owners expired. Our investment thesis could not be sustained, particularly with no clarity as to the circumstances under which next season will start and the new norms that will arise.”
This statement eludes to delays in the process of the deal being formally recognized by the Premier League through the Owners and Directors’ Test. The league had been be-set with a mountain of calls to deny the take over on several different grounds.
Though a definite disappointment to NUFC fans, the ending of this telenovela like plotline is a victory for the sport’s values and the virtues of integrity, honesty, and justice.
ended their £300 million deal to purchase Newcastle United</a> from its embattled owner, Mike Ashley. This agreement had been agreed upon in April.</p>
<p>The original deal had been met with a mix of excitement from fans desperate to see the Mike Ashley regime end and fear from others concerned about the linkages between the PIF and the state of Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>The PIF issued a <a href=https://playingfor90.com/2020/08/01/newcastle-united-collapse-best-result/"https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/newcastle-united-takeover-news-latest-pif-staveley-full-statement-a9646476.html">statement announcing their withdrawal from the agreement stating, “During the unforeseeably prolonged process, the commercial agreement between the investment group and the club’s owners expired. Our investment thesis could not be sustained, particularly with no clarity as to the circumstances under which next season will start and the new norms that will arise.”</p>
<p>This statement eludes to delays in the process of the deal being formally recognized by the Premier League through the Owners and Directors’ Test. The league had been be-set with a mountain of calls to deny the take over on several different grounds.</p>
<p>Though a definite disappointment to NUFC fans, the ending of this telenovela like plotline is a victory for the sport’s values and the virtues of integrity, honesty, and justice.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background: #0" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://playingfor90.com/2020/08/01/newcastle-united-collapse-best-result/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> The Newcastle deal should have been doomed before it started. </a>
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<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-483511 size-full" src=https://playingfor90.com/2020/08/01/newcastle-united-collapse-best-result/"https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/fetch/c_fill,g_auto,f_auto,h_2133,w_3200/https%3A%2F%2Fplayingfor90.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fgetty-images%2F2020%2F07%2F1152718220.jpeg" alt="Newcastle United" width="3200" height="2133" srcset="https://playingfor90.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2020/07/1152718220.jpeg 3200w, https://playingfor90.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2020/07/1152718220-768x512.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 3200px) 100vw, 3200px"><p class="wp-caption-text">Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Saudi Arabia’s Prince and Defence Minister Mohammad bin Salman al Saud (L) (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)</p>
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<h2>The Newcastle take over was a disaster waiting to happen.</h2>
<p>Per <a href=https://playingfor90.com/2020/08/01/newcastle-united-collapse-best-result/"https://theathletic.co.uk/1963915/2020/07/30/amanda-staveley-the-premier-league-impossible-ridiculous-newcastle-united-interview/">The Athletic</em></a>, the Premier League had sought clarity from the consortium attempting to buy Newcastle United regarding who was going to be running the club and what links PIF had with the Saudi Arabian state.</p>
<p>It was believed that PCP Partners, led by Amanda Staveley, and Reuben Brothers were going to operate the club’s day to day business operations backed by the PIF. Staveley and the Reuben Brothers fronted 10% each of the cash in the deal, and the PIF was fronting the remaining 80%.</p>
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<p>However, the chairman of the PIF is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who is the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>So, in essence, Newcastle would have been run by the state of Saudi Arabia with British figureheads running the club on the ground.</p>
<h3>This whole deal should have been a non-starter from the beginning.</h3>
<p>First, Saudi Arabia’s record of individual human rights is awful. The nation directed an assassination of a journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in a foreign country.</p>
<p>The oil-rich country is also directly involved in the civil war in Yemen, which has turned into one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent memory.</p>
<p>Secondly, the Saudi Arabian government had been linked to the piracy of telecasts of Premier League matches by beoutQ. BeIN Sports, based in Qatar, has the broadcasting rights to televise league matches in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Though the country has denied claims that it supported beoutQ, the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a report in June outlining the Saudi state’s role in the breach.</p>
<p>Since it is clear that the head of the Saudi government also is the head of the PIF, any deal giving them ownership of Newcastle United would further destroy the integrity, transparency, and honesty in the sport.</p>
<p>In turn, any deterioration of the sanctity of football would hurt its fans in the long run.</p>
<div class="next-slide slider"> <a class="next-slide-btn" style="background: #0" data-track="shortcode" data-track-action="next-slide-shortcode" href=https://playingfor90.com/2020/08/01/newcastle-united-collapse-best-result/"#"> <span class="title">Next:</span> Newcastle United should not be run by a government. </a>
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<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-483512 size-full" src=https://playingfor90.com/2020/08/01/newcastle-united-collapse-best-result/"https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/fetch/c_fill,g_auto,f_auto,h_2100,w_1600/https%3A%2F%2Fplayingfor90.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fgetty-images%2F2020%2F07%2F1227380305.jpeg" alt="Newcastle United" width="1600" height="2100" srcset="https://playingfor90.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2020/07/1227380305.jpeg 1600w, https://playingfor90.com/wp-content/uploads/getty-images/2020/07/1227380305-768x1008.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px"><p class="wp-caption-text">Players celebrate with Matt Ritchie of Newcastle (R) (Photo by Ian Horrocks/ Getty Images)</p>
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<h2>The Premier League put its foot down?</h2>
<p>As discussed in a previous column, the slippery slope of state-run football clubs in the EPL started with Chelsea and, in an even further blatant manner, by Manchester City’s ownership group.</p>
<p>Thus, it is both surprising and welcomed that the Premier League made a point of trying to clarify any links between PIF and the Saudi Arabian ruling family.</p>
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<p>The two reasons stated previously why a consortium fronted indirectly by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia should not take over Newcastle are examples of why nation-states should never be involved in any way in running private football clubs, which are businesses.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that the take over was an attempt by Saudi Arabia to “sports wash” its image on the most prominent sports league in the world with its billions of fans all over the planet.</p>
<p>It is a compromise with evil and any time good compromises with evil, it’s the evil that always wins.</p>
<p>Furthermore, governments running any private business enterprise, like a Premier League team, destroy the entrepreneurial spirit of independent individual businesspeople and is a violation of their rights.</p>
<p>The proper role of governments is to protect the rights of individual owners and citizens from fraud, crime, and foreign incursion. It is not the government’s place to buy and operate using public money taken by force, football teams.</p>
<p>With that said, the fitness test used by the Premier League to determine the viability of potential owners should be strengthened to include rules that prohibit any state-run ownership of its member clubs.</p>
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<p>This change will protect the sports’ integrity, honesty, and sense of justice by making it more transparent and in private hands.</p><!—pageview_candidate—>">