Journalist Liam Kennedy appeared on the latest edition of NUFC Matters with Steve Wraith and they spent some time talking about Newcastle Consortium Supporters Limited’s (NCSL) claim that the Premier League breached UK anti-competition law in their ‘halting‘ of the Saudi-backed Newcastle United takeover bid, which has ‘dragged out since April.’
NCSL issued a ‘Letter Before Action’ to the English top flight with regard to this alleged breach, instructing that the Premier League ‘provide disclosure of certain documents relating to the Newcastle United takeover’ and gave them until 4pm on Tuesday 3rd November to respond.
The Premier League replied to that letter ‘three hours before’ their deadline, requesting a two-week extension ‘to consider a detailed response’ to NCSL’s claim – and reports have claimed that NCSL has since denied that request.
During this recent edition of NUFC Matters, Kennedy was asked if NCSL’s case would “clear the way for PIF” to move forward with their takeover of the Toon and the journalist then shared that while the case is ongoing, he thinks PIF’s interest in taking over the club will remain, saying:
“They are at the table. There’s a lot of people saying this deal hasn’t changed much – it hasn’t changed a massive amount, no – because they believe the deal that was there in the first place and the tests that they went through were legitimate and they passed them.
“They don’t believe they can fail what the questions were in the Owners’ and Directors’ Test. It’s meant to be an open-and-close case, really – and it looked that way up until probably about June, and then all the things changed.
“I believe that if there is a live case going on, PIF are more than happy to continue with this deal and so to are PCP, who have been championing this cause all the way through – and Mike Ashley, in particular.
“This deal can go through. I’m not for one second saying it will, it’s not going to be easy, but this can happen.”
Do you think this case will help the takeover to go through?
YES
NO
TIF Thoughts on what Kennedy had to say about this case in relation to PIF’s takeover interest…
It appears from what Kennedy had to say that despite struggling to get their takeover bid approved since April, PIF is very much still at the table with regard to their interest in taking over the North East club.
With NCSL seemingly having rejected the Premier League’s request for more time to respond to their Letter Before Action, it will be interesting to see what action the group now takes. If they are successful in proving their claim that the Premier League did breach UK anti-competition law, then maybe that will be positive for the takeover and we could see some significant movement with regard to the deal finally going through.