Eighteen Premier League clubs, including Tottenham Hotspur, voted on Monday to impose a temporary freeze on signing commercial and sponsorship deals with businesses that have links to their club’s owners, Sky Sports have revealed.
Newcastle’s Saudi-led takeover has been the major talking point in English football for the past two weeks. Around 80 per cent of Newcastle is now owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The new Magpies owners have promised fans that they will invest in the squad to ensure the club is competing for major honours.
According to Sky Sports, the remaining Premier League clubs feared the Saudi Arabian owners could sign lucrative deals with Saudi state-owned companies.
The Premier League’s financial fair play rules state clubs are allowed to make maximum losses of £105m over a rolling three-year period.
However, any artificially inflated commercial deals would increase revenues coming into a club and allow them to get around the rules.
Eighteen clubs are thus thought to have voted in favour of the freeze, while Newcastle voted against it and Manchester City abstained after their lawyers advised them the vote was unlawful.
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The temporary freeze will be in place for a month, with talks set to continue regarding a permanent rule change.
Spurs Web Opinion
This is absolutely the right decision and this rule should be made permanent. That is the only way that Financial Fair Play can be implemented.
This would still allow Newcastle to outspend their competition but it would not allow them to spend obscene amounts by artificially inflating their revenue as Manchester City did with their stadium naming rights deal.
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