Steve Parish had 'no objection' to the Newcastle United takeover - but the Crystal Palace chairman was 'concerned' by the 'pressure' placed on the government during the saga.
Parish was speaking at the launch of the Union of European Clubs group, which is an independent representative body founded to improve support and advocacy for non-elite professional clubs across the continent. It did not take long for Newcastle to come up in conversation during a panel discussion on the prospect of an independent regulator.
Although Parish felt the government were being 'well-intentioned', the 57-year-old warned 'when you have governments involved, things become politicised'. To illustrate his point, Parish referenced emails disclosed by the Athletic where the Foreign Office considered the possible failure of the Newcastle takeover to be an 'immediate risk' to the UK's relationship with Saudi Arabia back in June, 2020. Sir Edward Lister, who was the chief strategic officer to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even searched for a 'senior interlocutor to impress the interests' of the government onto the Premier League.
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"We have seen some emails between the government from a Freedom of Information act around the Newcastle takeover where it seems that there was some connection between massive investment into Britain from a certain area of the world linked to buying that football club," Parish said. "Now, personally, for me, if you allow one nation state to buy a football club, you have to allow others to buy a football club.
"I personally didn't have an objection to it in that context, but it does seem that there was some pressure placed on the government to allow that through. Certainly, for us, it's dangerous enough with all the politics we have in sport without real politics entering into it and we have nation states and governments deciding on what is fair and what is right and wrong for football.
"That side of things is slightly concerning. Hopefully we can manage the regulator's influence and keep it quite focused and quite narrow, but we will see where it lands."
The £305m deal finally got the green light in October, 2021 following a breakthrough in a piracy row between Saudi Arabia and beIN SPORTS, the Premier League's official broadcaster in the Middle East. The Premier League insisted at the time it had received 'legally binding assurances' that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would not control the club after the PIF, the nation's sovereign wealth fund, bought an 80% stake.
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