In an interview with Saudi TV, Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has revealed that PIF were offered the chance to buy a 30% stake in another Premier League club for £700m prior to their purchase of the Toon.
The club in question is believed to be Manchester United, a team Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – chairman of the sovereign wealth fund – was very interested in according to reports from 2019.
However, nothing ever materialised and PIF, alongside Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi and the Reuben brothers, would then go on to complete the £305m takeover of Newcastle United in October 2021.
While PIF had been offered 100% of the club, Al-Rumayyan believed it would be ‘perfect’ to have Staveley and the Reuben brothers – who liked the project so much – involved with a 10% stake each.
On the deal, Al-Rumayyan said: “Football, of course, is one of the most important sports there is. Whether domestically or abroad. It’s the number one sport in the world.
“And why the English Premier League? Because it’s the best league in the world. No other league competes with it. There are 20 teams, three are relegated and three are promoted. The advantage of the Premier League is that any of the 20 teams can beat the best team in the league.
“When we looked at it, we looked at it from a financial perspective. By the way, it wasn’t the first offer we got regarding a football team. We looked in Italy, France and the UK as well.
“For example, in the UK there was a team that approached us on the basis that we take 30 per cent of the ownership, and we don’t interfere at all in terms of managing the club, for £700m.”
Al-Rumayyan then claimed: “Then we bought Newcastle, who offered us 100 per cent of the ownership. But Amanda Staveley and her husband who got us the opportunity told us, ‘We like it so much, we would like to be with you’. That was perfect.
“Then came the Reuben family who are one of the biggest property investors, saying that, ‘We would like to come with you’, and these are one of the biggest investors in Newcastle. I said, ‘Perfect! Tell them to come’. So now they (Amanda, her husband and Reubens) have a skin in the game.
“We bought the whole team for £350m, instead of only having 30 per cent in another team for £700m. You can see Chelsea was sold for $3.5bn. So, my potential now is to go from £350m to at least $3.5bn.”
With Newcastle’s stock continuously on the rise and discussions of European football already materialising, our owners have an exciting prospect on their hands that could be worth ten times what they originally paid for it.
