The Newcastle United takeover had the ‘blessing’ of the former UK government.
That is according to Leeds United CEO Angus Kinnear, who was a top-flight executive when the buy-out was finally completed nearly three years ago. The Tory government at the time, led by ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, always denied having a role in the deal or attempting to influence it, but papers previously released by the Foreign Office revealed that a possible failure of the takeover would have posed an ‘immediate risk’ to UK-Saudi relations and a ‘senior interlocutor’ was even considered ‘to impress HMG interests with the Premier League’.
Sir Keir Starmer once said that the ownership models of clubs like Newcastle were a ’cause of concern’ and the Labour leader suggested it was ‘something regulators need to look at’. However, ahead of becoming Prime Minister earlier this year, Sir Keir stated ‘we are not going down that road’, when it comes to ‘putting off investment into football’, and the Arsenal season ticket holder instead vowed that transparency and accountability would come through the regulator.
On that point, the Football Governance Bill includes a clause where decisions on new owners, as well as current custodians, ‘must also have regard to the foreign and trade policy objectives’ of the government, which feels relevant given the UK’s close relationship with Saudi.
“Do you think a regulator would have stopped the Saudi state entering football?” Kinnear asked the Square Ball. “It wouldn’t.
“The Saudis’ entry into football was blessed by the British government because of the amount of arms trade we do with Saudi. That’s the issue. It’s not whether we have a regulator in the middle of it or not.
“Having an instrument of government trying to run one of the most successful products that England exports and has built seems like a bad idea to me in terms of how well the government run everything else, but I do completely accept that the game needs significant reform. Everyone knows it needs significant reform. It’s not working. I just question whether the government are the best people to reform it.”
