If they reject it on the basis of the wto report then they will have to wait until that is officially released otherwise they will essentially be revealing the results of that report before its officially released by the wto. Hope that’s not the case and the negotiations sort out the piracy issue so it can go ahead. Will be crushing if this fails now.
Yes I’ve seen this at some point. Possibly in this thread. The key point here is that the ruling has already been done By WTO. The PL will know as they have the report. Still can’t decide how this affects the fit and proper test? Anyone? I want to see the report right NOW!
exactly and it seems the most likley and obvious reason. I've taken the piss joking around, but I firmly believe this is the reason for delaying the failure. There's no other more likley scenario other than some far out narrative
Exactly this. If found guilty then they need a resolution. The resolution is to fix the problem and ensure moving forward things are above board. Oh and of course approve the takeover.
The only way it can possibly affect it is by directly linking piracy to PIF or the Crown Prince (Chairman of PIF.) It would be seriously funny if after all of this the Saudi's only crime was failing to stop it.
Let's be honest it could be a lot worse if it doesn't go through.... ...We could be in the turd division, for a turd year, in a bungalow, listening to Ibiza rave music, while ****ting on our seats and getting excited about a trip to Wembley for the 17th most prestigious trophy.
I noticed nufc.com haven't commented on this for weeks now; they're normally extremely up to date, they can clearly see its a waste of time trying to speculate now.
That report is due Friday. What I struggle with is the WTO are not a court. They can point a finger at Saudi for not acting and not allowing access to their law courts at the time - both of which have been corrected. But what they surely aren't going to be able to say is the PIF are responsible for piracy. The report says this already. The PL couldn't even sue - there is no BeoutQ and their commercial deal with Bein Sports was set in stone, it wasn't dependent on adding subscribers. The only ones who have a case are Bein Sports vs Saudi, who can argue that the piracy stopped them getting subscribers, but this is so far removed from the PL, from PIF, from Staveley, as makes no difference. In short, the WTO report should have no material bearing on the takeover. As I maintain, this is about the old boys club of the PL not wanting a wealthy NUFC involved. The PL as an organisation quite possible DO want the Saudi money, to protect them. But ManU et al won't want it. The release of the WTO report may not be for our interest, it may be for the eyes of the likes of ManU, to show that the PL could do nothing to stop the takeover. But then all of the above is known by everyone - the Saudi piracy only impacted Bein Sports. Nothing else.
hhhmmm yea so rather than my proposal is actually potentially vice versa on favour of them passing the takeover.. waiting to show the complainants there's no direct connection to PIF Stavely or the Reubans brothers before passing it officially.
Just incase anyone hasn't seen it, not that it tells us much of what we don't already know but here's the article from The Athletic the other day :- The Premier League hosted its 10th shareholders’ meeting since the start of March last Thursday — twice as many as it normally hosts in a year. Like the previous nine, it was dominated by talk of broadcast rebates, getting the show back on the box, and making the product look and sound as normal as possible in these abnormal times. Nobody should be surprised by this. The league was set up 28 years ago to take advantage of the coming of satellite television, has become the most successful domestic football league in the world on the back of its appeal to global audiences and now depends, more than ever, on making sure its unscripted drama plays out on as many screens as possible. With that in mind, Thursday was a pretty good day for the league and its broadcast partners, as they were able to give each club their first three fixtures after this season’s 100-day interruption. And for the vast majority of them, this was a moment to quietly celebrate. But there is a country-sized problem for one club and one broadcaster, and it is linked to perhaps the biggest dilemma the league has ever faced. On Sunday, June 21, Newcastle United, a club the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia is trying to buy, play Sheffield United, a club owned by a minor Saudi prince. In Saudi Arabia, the match will only be available on a pirate streaming service that steals the rights from one of the Premier League’s most generous partners, Qatar-based beIN Sports. And if that is not awkward enough, at some point in the week preceding this game, probably the day before the league resumes on June 17, a World Trade Organization (WTO) report is expected to underline what the European Commission, a French court, the US government and numerous experts have already established: that pirate streaming service was set up and supported by the Saudi state seemingly to destroy beIN’s business and diminish Qatar, the neighbour the Saudis have been blockading for three years. For most of that time, the Premier League has been one of beIN’s best allies, trying nine times to find legal representation in Saudi Arabia to shut down beoutQ (geddit?) and leading a coalition of world football’s seven leading rights-holders in calling on the Saudi government to respect international law. Last October, it even shut down a retailer who was selling beoutQ boxes on London’s Edgware Road. Director of legal services Kevin Plumb vowed the league would “continue to investigate and pursue all suppliers of illegal streaming services… to protect the intellectual property that enables the Premier League to be so competitive and compelling”. He added: “Addressing the issues created by the unprecedented beoutQ situation remains a key priority of the Premier League and we will work tirelessly to support beIN Sports, as well as all other broadcasters and fans who acquire our content legitimately.” But since news of Saudi Arabia’s interest in Newcastle broke in January, the Premier League has been caught in an almost impossible position. If it lets Saudi’s Public Investment Fund become the majority owner at St James’ Park, it risks cutting adrift a company that has invested £1.3 billion in English football since 2015, at a time when the game needs that money more than ever, as well as compromising everything the league has stood for and defended for nearly three decades. If it blocks the takeover, it risks the mother of all legal battles against an opponent fuelled by the world’s second-largest oil reserves, a political ruck with a post-Brexit UK government keen to keep the kingdom onside and fury from Newcastle’s fanbase. It will also lose its best chance to close beoutQ once and for all. The Premier League’s vetting-and-ratification process, its Owners’ and Directors’ Test, is now in its third month in this case, when it usually takes three weeks. Sources have told The Athletic the crux of the delay is this: the Premier League cannot see a way to sanction the deal without Saudi Arabia unblocking beIN Sports, shutting down beoutQ and opening up its courts. It is understood there has been what one source described as significant “back and forth” on this issue, with Newcastle’s prospective new owners, who include British businesswoman Amanda Staveley and UK property developers the Reuben brothers as minority shareholders, sending detailed answers to a fresh batch of questions about beoutQ’s piracy on Wednesday. Staveley and her partners in the deal are believed to remain confident they will pass the test and assume control at Newcastle, but nobody can say with any certainty when that will happen. There is no doubt this particular issue has caused more trouble than the Public Investment Fund, chaired by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, expected but the clues were always there in the small print of the Owners’ and Directors’ Test. As The Athletic explained in April, the test has never been the subjective judgment its former name, the Fit and Proper Person Test, suggested. On the contrary, it is an objective list of requirements a prospective owner, part-owner, or club director must meet if they are going to be allowed to perform one of those roles in English football. The test’s most important element is a checklist of “disqualifying events”: Are you allowed to be a director under UK company law? Do you have control or influence over another English club? Do you have an unspent conviction for an offence of dishonesty? Are you and your money allowed to enter the country? And so on. The test is intentionally broad in a few areas, most notably on offences in a foreign jurisdiction that would result in criminal sanctions in Britain, rather than whether or not your behaviour actually resulted in a conviction. Furthermore, there is also a specific reference in the test to digital piracy being a no-no and a more catch-all clause requiring any prospective owner or director to have never provided “false, misleading or inaccurate information” in their dealings with the league. Several experts, none of whom wished to be quoted on the matter, have told The Athletic there are possible grounds here for the league to reject the takeover, or at the very least send the application back for urgent amendment. The Athletic is in possession of reams of documents from the various letters, reports and statements that have been written about beoutQ — “a heist so audacious that if it were a Hollywood script, you would struggle to believe it”. Those are the words of beIN Media Group chief executive Yousef Al-Obaidly and will, therefore, be taken by some with a pinch of salt, but his lack of objectivity in the dispute does not deflect from the fact he is right. His company is one of the biggest buyers of live sport in the world, with a portfolio of rights worth £12 billion. It is the main sports broadcaster in 24 countries from Morocco to Oman and has a presence in 19 other national markets. And it has paid dozens of British and American leagues and governing bodies handsomely to broadcast their events over the last 15 years. But in June 2017, days after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic and trade ties with Qatar, access to the beIN website was blocked in Saudi Arabia, the sale of beIN’s set-top boxes was prohibited and its legal right to operate in the country revoked. And then came beoutQ, a highly sophisticated piracy operation that took beIN’s feed and re-streamed it via a website and apps with a seven-second delay. When asked by beIN and 10 rights-holders, including the Premier League, to stop this theft, the Saudi authorities said it had nothing to do with them and that beoutQ was a Colombian and Cuban enterprise. Both those countries have since denied this. Over the next two years, beIN’s antipiracy team tried every trick in the book to shut beoutQ down, at one point forcing the Riyahd-based pirate to steal its 2018 World Cup coverage from other international broadcasters. But every time beIN shut down an individual stream to one of its stolen boxes, beoutQ would hook up a new one. In fact, one of the most successful antipiracy measures beIN could come up with was the simplest: it started floating its logo all over the picture during broadcasts, so beoutQ could not just hide it under its logo in the corner of the screen. Meanwhile, beIN started a long and expensive legal campaign. Unable to take action in the country where the crime was taking place, the company had to be creative, starting actions in France and the US, on specific points, and launching two international cases. The first was an arbitration claim against the Saudi government for damages and the second a similar claim via the WTO but with the subtle difference of this being Qatar suing Saudi Arabia. The basis of both those claims is that the Saudi state not only launched beoutQ as part of its economic assault on Qatar but flouts international law on the protection of intellectual property by denying wronged parties any recourse to justice. Remember, the Premier League do not need to be told this: they tried to hire nine different Saudi law firms to take action against beoutQ, but those firms all changed their minds about taking the case. As mentioned above, the WTO’s report on the case is coming and The Athletic understands it is a slam dunk for Qatar. The arbitration case is still rumbling on but it is believed that will be a Qatari win, too. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has repeatedly and strongly denied any state involvement in beoutQ’s activities. But the country remains on piracy blacklists around the world and beoutQ continues to push out its stolen sports and entertainment content via the internet. BeIN, meanwhile, has laid off more than 360 staff, citing the impact of piracy, and has already given up its Formula 1 rights, partly because beoutQ ruined their value and partly because beIN was unimpressed with F1’s response to the problem. The Premier League brings in more than £9 billion a year in broadcast income because it has made companies including beIN, NBC and Sky Sports feel like equal partners. Their money has been invested by the clubs in world-class players and coaches, improving the spectacle and therefore earning more money for top talent. It is a virtuous circle reinforced by the league’s dogged pursuit of dodgy set-top boxes, pubs using illegal streams and pirate broadcasters. It is why the league opened its first overseas office in Singapore last year, as it was felt it was time to put some boots on the ground in this endless game of cat and mouse. And while the league has been careful to avoid saying anything that could come back to bite it in regards to Saudi Arabia and Newcastle, its views on the country’s status as a safe harbour for pirates are clear. In an interview with February’s edition of SportsPro magazine, the league’s head of legal affairs Kevin Plumb said: “We definitely have to respond when one of our most important broadcasters challenges us. “With beIN, it’s been: how do we have an impact when you have a very sophisticated pirate operation…in a territory we’re not used to enforcing in, and where it is very difficult for us to access the justice system? That is the problem. “To us, we need beIN to know that we’re right there alongside them — it’s no good for us to be 100 yards back, we have to be completely shoulder to shoulder. If we weren’t reacting in a way that beIN were happy with, then I’d be concerned by that as well.” Plumb then spelled out the Premier League’s position — a stance still officially shared by the British government — on the eve of the Saudi approach for one of its clubs. “BeoutQ essentially became a brand for reliable piracy — and then they found themselves being pirated as well,” he said. “In an ideal world, all those illegal boxes in Saudi Arabia would go away. I’d like to see it be on a level playing field with any other territory where there’s a number of illegal operators in the market, so I can go there, I can get evidence of what’s going on, and I have access to legal remedies. “If that is the case, then it’ll take time, there will be frustrations along the way, but we have a route forward alongside beIN, like we would in the UK, like we would in the States, like we would in Singapore. All we want is the territory to respect IP (intellectual property) rights and not be a dark territory for UK rights owners.” Of course, there are several other very well-publicised reasons why the Premier League might be extremely wary of adding MBS, as the crown prince is commonly known, to its family of owners. However, there is very little prospect of the league refusing to sanction the takeover because of Saudi Arabia’s democratic credentials or foreign policy. That is not the case for Saudi’s sponsorship of beoutQ, though. But here is where the Premier League can turn a crisis into an opportunity. Having so publicly set its heart on Newcastle and paid Mike Ashley a non-refundable deposit of £17 million, MBS will not want to leave the table empty-handed. The league will never have this much leverage again. One source described the situation as a “potential disaster that could become the biggest win-win in history” if the league can persuade the Saudis to properly crack down on beoutQ, lift its blockade of beIN and allow its lawyers to take custom from aggrieved overseas rights-holders. The sequence of events would be something along the lines of usual suspects being rounded up in Riyahd, a warehouse full of electronic equipment will be raided, the Saudi government gets the credit, beIN is begrudgingly allowed to operate again and MBS gets his Premier League billboard and investment opportunity. And then, when the Premier League’s Middle East and North African broadcast rights become available again in 2022, a legitimate Saudi Arabian sports broadcaster can give beIN a run for its money in the auction, creating genuine competition in the region and very probably driving the price up. No doubt that will prompt a few wry smiles at beIN’s headquarters in Doha, but competition is better than theft. The concern for Newcastle fans, though, is this depends on MBS being willing to call off one of the dogs he unleashed against Qatar in 2017 and make some political moves at home. Absolute monarchies can do this kind of thing pretty quickly but not necessarily in time for the summer transfer window. It has been suggested to The Athletic that this is the point where Staveley, the poorest member of the proposed new triumvirate at St James’ Park, can really earn her dollar, as somebody is going to have to tell MBS to give a little bit more to get what he wants. Despite the pickle over the piracy, the smart money is still on this takeover going through but nobody is talking about the Saudis sailing through the Owners’ and Directors’ Test anymore. This has been a troubled passage, and there may be a few more storms to navigate, but the prize is in sight.
I may be wrong but I think there's something in that,top 6 monopoly feel threatened and might be whispering in the background and funny thing is Newcastle were a top 6 team before Chelski,Spurs and City.
