Newcastle can sign Saudi Arabia League stars after Premier League ban fails

Newcastle United will no longer face a stumbling block should they desire to loan players from the PIF-owned Saudi Arabian clubs after the Premier League failed to get the required amount of votes to ban such transfers.

The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund owns 80 per cent of the Magpies after completing a takeover in 2021. Earlier this year, this PIF made another significant investment in football, this time on the home front, as they acquired the big four teams in the land—Al Nassr, Al-Ittihad, Al-Hilal and Al Ahli.

What followed was a spate of high-profile footballers from top European teams making their way to these clubs. Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, N’golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez, and Neymar, to mention but a few, all play in the Saudi Professional League.

This means Newcastle United are owned by the same investment fund that owns the clubs these top players play for, and the Premier League made a move to prevent them and other clubs in multi-club models from taking advantage of it.

The multi-club model is starting to gain more prominence, and the Premier League worries about clubs in this system having undue influence over others, especially in terms of transfers.

The league plans to come up with a resolution before the next summer transfer window but has proposed a temporary ban on loans from affiliated clubs to prevent such moves from happening in the January transfer window before a permanent solution has been figured out.

The league put it to a vote among its 20 member clubs today and only got 13 votes in favour of the ban, falling one short of the required 14 votes needed to meet the two-third threshold for such resolutions.

This means Newcastle, who are rife with injuries, can take advantage of their Gulf affiliations to bring in extra bodies on loan without falling into FFP trouble. According to the BBC, former Wolves midfielder Ruben Neves, who now plies his trade with SPL league leaders Al-Hilal, is strongly linked with such a move to St James’s Park following Sandro Tonali’s ten-month ban.

Clubs like Manchester City, one of 13 clubs in the City Group, Chelsea, the principal club in a multi-club model, and Crystal Palace are also favoured by this result.