I’m really not sure why everyone is celebrating this decision. The Saudis may not be the nicest out there but that’s not the reason this fell through. The PL, pressurised by PL clubs and tv rights partners have bottled this. Every other club can forget about attempting to join the party. By their own O&D test this should have passed, the PL accepted the PIF were a separate legal entity and then wanted the country named as a director to do tests on. That’s just madness and contradictory.
The PL is dead is far as I’m concerned now; it’s meaningless, globally the fan base of the top 6 will grow, that’ll satisfy tv audiences who don’t like to see their team lose and we and you will be there to make the numbers up.
The greater loss is to the region. We are in the middle of a global pandemic, the Rueben brothers already own a large chunk of ground and property around Newcastle and the prospect of increased investment was huge. People with no interest in football will lose out, sorely needed Govt investment will not materialise. The Reuben’s have for some time been contributing to local food banks.
SA has an appalling human rights record but nobody should kid themselves that this stopped the deal. You shouldn’t afraid of what could have been, you need to wake up to what is already there.
This isn’t sour grapes, it’s a realisation of the closed shop that will not be broken.
Cheers lads, try and stop the stereotype view of the average person from the north east eh.
I must admit i had major doubts as to just how much finance would actually be put in by PIF, and over how long a period if it had been given the go ahead. Crucially the management structure was almost completely unreflective of the money put in by the various partners, PCP capital, the Reuben brothers and the 80% stake from PIF!!! The day to day running was envisaged to be mainly by the small minority partner Amanda Stavely, and from that point of view I was on the same page as catcherintherye. It wasn't to my mind likely to be all that was hoped for by Newcastle's fans. Yes, there were plenty of promises of investment in the club and area no doubt, but promises and actuality are two different matters altogether.
Any doubt that Yasir Al-Rumayyan belonged to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s innermost circle was dispelled when a photo of them went viral in Saudi Arabia in December 2018.
It showed him in a group relaxing, the so called 'band of hiking bros' as they've been dubbed by the financial press, resplendent in baseball caps, shorts and t shirts. His rise has amazingly almost exactly mirrored the rise to power of the prince himself, there's a coincidence.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan was the Saudi banker who became the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and a close confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with no experience in oil or energy, yet it was he who was put forward to run Saudi Aramco in 2019. This was the country's top corporate job at the world's most profitable company as it prepared for what may have been the biggest initial public offering (IPO) ever. This alone perhaps confirmed a pattern of the rising fortunes of the former banker almost exactly mirroring the rise of the prince.
As chairman of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund he now sits on the board of some of their other major investments including Uber. He was to become chairman of Newcastle with NO visible presence, an almost unheard of situation where the major investor providing 80% of the finance and the investment isn't truly reflected within the management structure.
There's little doubt that besides the well publicised streaming piracy infringements, it was the possible direct 'influence' of the regime itself, although maybe technically a separate entity, one that they could argue had no legal basis, that was the major concern and let's face it in reality, probability. So little wonder the premier league not being naive enough to just let this go when their controlling rights are being allegedly pirated by that same regimes' 'unowned again, and completely separate' streaming station BeoutQ, would be concerned . Believing the regime to not exert undue influence and power over it's interests isn't realistic, their record shows it. The possible connections to the Saudi regime could be denied as nothing official or legal,bbut the overwhelming probability is they were definitely real enough and the controlling interest, in actuality if not on paper, would be the regime itself.
I share your concerns and don't want protectionism of the rich cartel of clubs and FFP to survive, I don't want the drawbridge to be drawn up so noone else can join or even compete. But this failed bid didn't do that, even if it sounds dramatic to assert it did not at all. It was the piracy, the alleged influence over the pirate station of the regime, the commercial conflicts of rights issues in the middle East and doubts over the actual influence of the regime within the sovereign wealth fund and the unreflective proposed management structure that made what should have been a straightforward procesz into such a massively and unexpected protracted one. The premier league couldn't legally prove anything but we're reluctant knowing the all too likely actuality. In the end they were probably grateful the bidders themselves pulled out
I'm against the cosy cartel, protected by FFP that ganged up on City. The tearing down of the protectionist FFP and the artificial barriers erected by the rich to protect the rich, that was the real battle to my mind. Man City's victory in their appeal represented the first steps towards the crumbling of those walls. Successful takeovers should now effectively have more licence to spend their own money on their own clubs how they want to (spend their own money)
Although it may sound perverse to some, City's victory in their appeal was also a victory for the aspirant clubs hoping for a takeover so they too can one day compete at the top table. FFP is and has always been the real barrier, now Platini's barrier is crumbling.
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