Nick De Marco & Amanda Staveley in agreement as Newcastle United takeover questioned

Sports lawyer Nick De Marco does not believe the Premier League will re-examine Newcastle United’s takeover - despite the fresh scrutiny.

Court documents published in the United States last month described the Public Investment Fund, who own 80 per-cent of the Magpies, as “a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, United’s non-executive chairman, as “a sitting minister of the Saudi government”.

The PIF-led takeover of Newcastle had stalled for 18 months before being approved by the Premier League in October 2021 after they received “legally-binding assurances” that the Saudi state would not have control of the club.

The revelation, as highlighted in the ongoing legal dispute between golf’s PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, has raised new concerns. Human rights group Amnesty International have called for the ownership model to be re-examined.

Premier League chief executive Richard Masters, who gave evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on the publication of a proposed legislation on football governance following a fan-led review on Tuesday, refused to confirm whether or not his organisation would re-examine the deal.

Asked by committee member Clive Efford about the US court documents, Masters replied: “I can’t really comment on it. 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.”

Lawyer De Marco – who represented Newcastle United during the takeover process - recently addressed the same question in comments quoted by CityAM.

De Marco said: “No, I don’t think the Premier League will look into this, because I don’t think they need to.

“For that reason nothing that has happened in the LIV case, it seems to me, changes any of that. There has been no suggestion that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has now changed its mind and is somehow exercising control over Newcastle, so I don’t believe this will lead to any change.”

Speaking at The Financial Times‘ Business of Football Summit earlier this month, Magpies co-owner Amanda Staveley, whose company PCP Partners own 10 per-cent of Newcastle along with RB Sports & Media, denied any Saudi state involvement.

Staveley said: “The undertaking was that Saudi Arabia would not control the club. That undertaking has been and is being honoured.” Staveley has previously described PIF as an “autonomous, commercially-driven investment fund.”

Masters stated in November 2021 that if the Premier League discovered there was any state involvement in the running of Newcastle, they could “remove the consortium as owners of the club”.

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