After years of speculation, prevarication and consternation, Saudi Public Investment Fund has at last sealed the purchase of a Premier League football club, Newcastle United
Premier League sustainability rules will make it much harder to “do a Chelsea / Man City” for any new suddenly wealthy club. Newcastle would be able to increase their wage bill and spend on players but once that turns into regular 8 figure losses they’ll have to generate new income.
What baffles me is that we are forgetting this is a club with a big fan-base and great stadium. Comparing to Man City’s starting positions in that sense they’re already ahead. They won’t become that too big anymore, but for a top 6 level team, they can generate more than enough income with the fans being over the moon.
The Saudi takeover is certainly good news for clubs across Europe looking to get rid of expensive talent. Clubs like Barcelona for example. Pandemic destroyed transfer market, now all of a sudden there will be a new actor to inject liquidity into market, and potentially overpay.
The Saudi takeover is a good test for journalism too. We have all got the same briefing: “breakthrough made after owners have finally proved to the Premier League that PIF (Public Investment Fund) involvement will be separate from Saudi state.” – What does that even mean when KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] is an absolute monarchy? It’s nonsense.
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One thing that is crystal clear – this is and has been 100 percent about piracy and nothing else. BeIN calling the shots. Premier League only acted because of worry over BeIN contract. Now BeIN pals with KSA again, they’re okay with Premier League clearing deal. BeIN also a state actor. This is just a game.
Short conclusion
Through weak leadership the Premier League allowed itself to be held hostage by a conflict between two Gulf kingdoms and nothing to prevent this happening again.
Where Saudi Public Investment Fund stands amongst world Mega wealth funds
With assets worth $430,000,000,000, the Saudi Public Investment Fund – who are already the majority owner of Newcastle United – is the ninth largest sovereign wealth fund in the world
A few other corporations the Saudi Public Investment Fund has stakes in: BP, Facebook, Walt Disney, Pfizer, IBM, Starbucks, Activision Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive (Rockstar), Electronic Arts. Its just business.
It is Important to understand what a Sovereign Wealth Fund is before making comparisons. The Saudi PIF is state-owned, has $430bn in assets. The Abu Dhabi PIF is worth $649bn. Mansour founded an investment group to buy Man City. There is at least the appearance of being separate from UAE.
If we’re going all-in on state-owned Premier League football clubs (and this takeover would suggest we are), then we are open to a new world of possibility. This is no longer the world of hundreds of millions of dollars, this is hundreds of billions, in some cases trillions. GDP [Gross Domestic Product] money.
Western Business Men crying….
It really just depends on who you listen to for information. Western businessmen are no better, but have all the soft power in order to picture the Arabs as scumbags and themselves as “clean players”
Acting like there’s anyone clean in a multi-billion pound business world is treacherous. I do wonder why people speak of integrity where money and politics lie, when there’s zero integrity in the way people view the world in every single facet as a start.
People crying over the morals about the Newcastle takeover are doing it out of pure jealousy/hate honestly. Majority of owners of big clubs and billionaires in general are doing dodgy stuff too. You don’t become a billionaire if u care about the people working for you.
The Magpies almost got a taste of a Premier League too, was one of the dominant forces of the mid 90’s, Back to back Champions League semis etc. Ironic, the tune will soon shift when they win titles this time around.
BraggsSports can confirm that she is a consultant to Newcastle’s new project. Exciting times, LOML.
Bonus Point
Clubs like Bayern Munich will be irrelevant soon enough at this rate if they do not go wild as well. All of the TV money is going to England. Germany going through a generational change too. They will care more about English football than German within 10 years. No wonder Papa Florentino Perez [Real Madrid President] was willing to pay 200M Euros for Kylian Mbappe. He [Perez] knows the Gulf powers are circling. He is ahead of the curve.