On Tuesday, The Athletic revealed that Newcastle United and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan faces being sued over allegations that he “carried out the instructions” of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) with “the malicious intent” of harming the family of the country’s former intelligence chief.
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Al-Rumayyan is the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the country’s sovereign wealth fund that acquired an 80 per cent stake in Newcastle in October 2021.
Officially, that takeover was only approved after the Premier League received “legally binding assurances” that PIF was separate from the Saudi government.
Unofficially, as shown by documentation sourced by The Athletic, the resolution of a piracy case — in which a Saudi broadcaster, beoutQ, allegedly illegally streamed footage from Qatari company beIN Sport — was also a major factor.
However, this new legal case presents more difficult questions for the English Premier League and the long-standing claim that Newcastle’s owners are separated from the Saudi state.
Why does it matter if PIF is separate from the Saudi state?
It comes down to control and reputation. When PIF’s takeover of Newcastle was announced, concerns were levied over Saudi Arabia’s human rights records, which includes the criminalisation of homosexuality, underage executions, a lack of women’s rights, and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.
If the state of Saudi Arabia was found to be the owner of Newcastle, it would, by extension, fail the Premier League’s owners and directors’ test (OADT). The chairman of PIF’s board is MBS.
Rule F.1.8 in the list of the OADT’s disqualifying events states no deal can be approved by the Premier League if “in the reasonable opinion of the board, (the owners) have engaged in conduct outside of the UK that would constitute an offence if such conduct had taken place in the UK, whether or not such conduct resulted in a conviction”.
Rival Premier League clubs, concerned with the potential competitive impact of Newcastle being taken over by some of the richest people on the planet, echoed these concerns.
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So what is the Premier League’s opinion?
At the same time that it confirmed the takeover, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters stated that the league “has now received legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control Newcastle United”.
The Premier League has never confirmed the exact nature of these assurances.
Since then, Masters has faced repeated questions to investigate the exact relationship between the Saudi state and the football club in practice. However, talking to MPs in March, he said: “I’m afraid I can’t comment on it. Even to the point of saying it is the Premier League investigating it, I can’t really comment.
“The only 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 decides if any rule breaches have taken place.”
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Are they really separate?
That claim of separation appeared to be undermined by PIF itself when lawyers representing it claimed sovereign immunity in a court case involving LIV Golf — a multi-tournament competition financed by PIF — in the United States.
They said the PIF and Newcastle chairman Al-Rumayyan are “a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a sitting minister of the government”.
With the Premier League’s assurances meant to ensure that Newcastle were not being controlled by the Saudi state, PIF’s claim that its governor, and the club’s chairman, was a “sitting member of the minister of the government” appeared to undermine that case.
Newcastle and the Premier League have both refused to comment on the implications of the case, which was withdrawn after a surprise merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour was announced in June.
“It was always stretching credulity to breaking point to imagine that the Saudi state wasn’t directing the buyout of Newcastle with the ultimate aim of using the club as a component in its wider sportswashing efforts,” Peter Frankental, Amnesty UK’s economic affairs director, said in March.
“The Premier League will surely need to re-examine the assurances made about the non-involvement of the Saudi authorities in the Newcastle deal.”
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One month later, an investigation by The Athletic revealed emails from the UK government that tied the success of the takeover to the country’s relationship to Saudi Arabia. The chief strategic advisor to Boris Johnson, the prime minister at the time, even sought to find a “senior interlocutor to impress the interests” of the government onto the Premier League.
It has previously been reported that MBS, the PIF’s chairman, sent private phone messages to Johnson in which he warned there may be economic consequences for Britain if the Premier League resisted the takeover.
What have Newcastle’s owners said on the subject?
With PIF owning 80 per cent of Newcastle, the other 20 per cent is split equally between the Reuben family, London-based property developers, and husband and wife Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, who have a long history of facilitating deals between Gulf investors and European and American companies.
Since the takeover, Staveley and Ghodoussi have taken the lead in running the club day-to-day — Staveley is usually the club’s representative at Premier League meetings, alongside CEO Darren Eales.
This, it is argued, means Newcastle is not controlled by the Saudi state, thereby meeting the Premier League’s binding assurances, regardless of the club’s ultimate ownership.
However, Al-Rumayyan is still consulted over major matters. The club’s television documentary, released on Amazon Prime in August, showed him being consulted over the transfer of Anthony Gordon, for example.
In March, Staveley, speaking at the FT Business of Football summit, said: “The undertaking was that Saudi Arabia would not control the club. That undertaking has been and is being honoured.”
What else does PIF own?
As one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, responsible for divesting Saudi Arabia’s economy as part of MBS’ Vision 2030 project, PIF holds stakes in several of the West’s most eminent companies, including Disney, Tesla, Boeing and Uber.
Individually, Al-Rumayyan is the chairman of state oil institution Aramco, the globe’s most valuable company, and of Maaden, Saudi Arabia’s largest mining firm. Reliance Industries, the largest conglomerate in India, has named him on its board, as has Uber, the largest taxi company in the world.
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In recent years, PIF has also invested heavily in sport, which has a three-pronged strategy — a long-term financial investment, a method to keep MBS popular with Saudi Arabia’s young and sports-mad population, and a way to enhance the country’s reputation internationally.
In October 2021, the same month as purchasing Newcastle, PIF launched LIV Golf, intended as a challenger to the PGA Tour. LIV Golf has since attracted several of the world’s top players to play in its tournaments, offering huge cash prizes.
Last June, the wealth fund also bought the four largest clubs in Saudi Arabia — Al Nassr, Al Hilal, Al Ittihad, and Al Ahli — to enhance the Saudi Pro League, aiming to make it one of the top 10 leagues in the world.
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Are any other Premier League clubs owned by a state?
No Premier League clubs are state-owned — though several have close links.
Most notably, Manchester City were taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) in 2008, a private equity company with strong connections to the UAE government.
The club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour, is the vice president and deputy prime minister of the UAE. His brother, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is the president of the UAE.
Sheikh Mansour is the majority shareholder in Manchester City via Newton Investment and Development, a company he wholly owns, which is registered in Abu Dhabi and possesses a majority shareholding in City Football Group (CFG).
As such, it would be legally inaccurate to describe City as state-owned, despite Sheikh Mansour’s prominent political positions in the UAE and Abu Dhabi, its capital. City have reiterated many times that they are not state-owned or funded.
Sheffield United are not state-owned but are controlled by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a minor member of the ruling family.
(Top photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images)