Premier League chief executive Richard Masters says Newcastle’s owners can be removed should the Saudi state be found to control the club.
Newcastle were taken over by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – who the country’s Crown Prince is chairman of – last month.
Masters said the Premier League had received “legally binding assurances” that the Saudi state would not control the club.
“The issue is about control and we resolved the issue of control,” Masters told the BBC.
“There are legally-binding assurances that the state will not be in control of the club.
“If we find evidence to the contrary we can remove the consortium as owners of the club in accordance with the rules. That is understood.
“There are ways of insuring we are comfortable and satisfied, and that remains the case.”
The fall-out of the Newcastle takeover has seen Gary Hoffman step down as Premier League chairman following a backlash from clubs.
Human rights groups have also claimed the deal is an attempt to improve Saudi Arabia’s image by ‘sportswashing’ amid concerns about the country’s human rights record.
On those concerns, Masters said: “The takeover has gone through and we have to be comfortable that all the things we do at the Premier League will be preserved under the new ownership.
“You can’t have one rule for one and one for another and so Newcastle will be run on the right basis.
“The club itself is abiding by the key criteria and to my satisfaction they are.
“PIF are an investor in many other companies in this country and maybe football is being targeted and talked about in a different way.
“I can’t choose who is chairing a football club. The owners test doesn’t let us take a view on that.”
Conservative MP Tracey Crouch has chaired a study into English football and believes the Newcastle takeover would have been “stress-tested more” by the independent regulator proposed in the fan-led review.
Last month 18 Premier League clubs backed a move to temporarily block Newcastle doing any new deals linked to their Saudi ownership, something director Amanda Staveley admitted had come as a “shock” and which had given the club “a big battering”.
The PA news agency understands that ban on owner-related sponsorship deals has been extended until December 14, due to the volume of work involved in finalising a new proposal.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here