During the latest edition of The Price of Football podcast, football finance expert Kieran Maguire spent some time talking about Newcastle United and the likelihood of the EFL approving their Saudi-backed takeover if the Toon were relegated to the Championship.
Newcastle United were subject to a takeover bid from PCP Capital Partners, the Reuben brothers and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), however, last month, the Toon released a statement via their official website to declare that the Premier League rejected that takeover bid, some weeks after the consortium had pulled out of proceedings.
The Premier League subsequently responded to that claim by stating that it did not reject the takeover bid and went on to say that ‘the relevant entities’ involved with this takeover failed to ‘provide all appropriate information,’ meaning that the takeover couldn’t ‘proceed to the next stage.’
Either way, the takeover didn’t receive the Premier League’s approval. When asked if the EFL would approve this takeover if the Toon were relegated to England’s second tier during this recent edition of The Price of Football podcast, Maguire said: “It’s an intriguing one, this. In theory, the two sets of rules are identical.
“So, the EFL should be consistent with the approach taken by the Premier League, but the Premier League is still saying to anybody that’s prepared to listen: ‘we never prevented the deal from taking place, we just didn’t get round to making a decision and we took months and months and months to avoid making a decision.’
“I think that the EFL might have taken a slightly more pragmatic approach if they realised the costs involved in making some form of adjudication, perhaps they would’ve pushed through the decision and they do seem to have more of a light-touch approach, in general.”
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TIF Thoughts…
So, judging by what Maguire had to say, it seems he believes that while the Premier League and the EFL should be following a similar approach to the takeover approval process, this consortium may have had a better chance of getting this deal approved by the EFL.
However, it may be fair to say that unless Newcastle do get relegated and this consortium makes a renewed takeover bid, or unless this consortium abandons their pursuit of the Toon and targets an EFL club instead, there might not be a sure way of knowing whether or not they would have better luck with the EFL than they had with the Premier League.