The Premier League is coming under pressure to press Newcastle United for an explanation for 80 per cent shareholders PIF telling US legal authorities they are effectively an instrument of the Saudi state.
The League believed in early 2020 that the proposed Newcastle takeover by nation’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) was in fact a Saudi state project that would be driven in part by the influence of Saudi’s de factor ruler, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
Sources both inside the League and inside Newcastle have confirmed that the League felt that Saudi, as a nation, would become a shadow director of the club, and as such wanted a representative of the government - whether MBS himself or another senior figure - to be subject to the league’s ‘Owners’ and Directors’ test’.