Premier League clubs on Monday during an emergency meeting voted to impose a temporary freeze on any of new Newcastle United owners signing commercial and sponsorship deals with businesses that have links to their club’s owners.
The above decision was reached as concerns were raised during the meeting that the new owners of Newcastle United could sign deals with Saudi state-owned companies.
National Daily can confirm that 80 per cent of Newcastle United is now owned by Saudi Arabia’s state sovereign wealth fund.
Meanwhile, eighteen out of the twenty Premier League clubs voted in favour of the freeze, while the Magpies expectedly voted against it and with Manchester City abstaining from the vote after their lawyers advised them that it was unlawful.
The Premier League however has declined to comment.
Premier League financial fair play rules allow clubs to make maximum losses of £105m over a rolling three-year period.
Any artificially inflated commercial deals would increase revenues coming into a club and allow them to get around the rules and spend more than they are allowed.
The temporary freeze will be in place for a month while talks are held about a permanent rule change.
One PL executive said: “If we didn’t have the ban, there would have been nothing to stop Newcastle signing, say a £100m naming rights deal for their stadium with a Saudi company linked to their owners.
“They could then have used that money to buy players in January and get around our financial fair play rules”
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