Newcastle United podcaster Norman Riley appeared on a recent edition of the Football Social Daily podcast to discuss all of the latest Newcastle United news and he spent some time talking about the Saudi-backed Toon takeover bid during the show.
The Toon issued a statement via their official website last month in which they claimed that the Premier League rejected the bid to buy the club that was made by a consortium consisting of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), PCP Capital Partners and the Reuben brothers.
Riley speculated on potential reasons why the Premier League allegedly rejected this Toon takeover bid during his recent appearance on the Football Social Daily podcast and he shared his thoughts on the possibility that the rumoured plans of a FIFA-backed European Premier League played a part in the English top flight’s decision.
He said: “The fact that the Premier League rejected it, based on the information that I’ve read, is a really terrible decision. The reasoning behind it I can’t fathom, and obviously we have this talk of the ‘bigger’ clubs breaking away and forming a European Super League, and I think to myself – did the Premier League have this in mind? And did they not want another team to be at the table with absolutely loads of money in the bank who are willing to buy success? I don’t know.
“It sounds like the stuff of conspiracies, but you just never know in terms of how the Premier League operates, because there is that much money involved, there is that much power concentrated in the hands of very few clubs, you genuinely don’t know what the actual thought process was behind it.”
Do you think the European Premier League had anything to do with the takeover not getting approved?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Riley had to say about the European Premier League and the Saudi-backed Toon takeover bid…
While Newcastle United claimed that the takeover bid was rejected by the Premier League, the English top-flight denied that allegation, responding to it by stating that they weren’t provided ‘all appropriate information’ from all of the ‘entities’ that they deemed to be ‘relevant’ regarding this takeover bid. They also claimed that their decision to not approve the takeover was based on ‘legal advice.’
Furthermore, Amanda Staveley of the PCP Capital Partners firm indicated that the reason they found it so difficult to get this takeover approved by the Premier League is that the top-flight “wanted the country, Saudi, to become a director of the football club.”
While Riley seems to think that the Premier League’s issue may have been with another English club potentially getting involved with this European Premier League, it seems, based on what the Premier League and Staveley have previously said, that the main issue is more likely to have been that the Premier League believe the Saudi state would have more influence over the running of the club than those behind the takeover claim it would.
Given that the European Premier League wasn’t mentioned by either side in relation to the takeover, we feel it is a bit of a stretch to link the unsuccessful takeover bid to that.