Newcastle United FC and the English Premier League

I write to you today for your support in asking for an urgent answer into the unacceptable and discriminatory way that the body known to you and I as the English Premier League (EPL) has treated Newcastle United Football Club (NUFC). I also wish to draw to your attention the behaviour of the EPL, which is being challenged by some of your colleagues within the DCMS.

Closer to home you will appreciate that Government allowed football to return to action in June and in return for retaining TV monies, there was agreement that the EPL would send in the region of £250 million to the English Football League (EFL) clubs to assist their revenue losses during the Covid 19 pandemic. By no surprise, this organisation (dominated by the ‘Big Six’ clubs) have deliberately delayed the process in the hope of seizing power and control of the whole 92 football league clubs in England.

Their belligerent plans, known, as ‘Big Picture’ would see these clubs control our national sport. We fear that there’s a deliberate attempt to delay much needed funds to EFL’s clubs; with little pressure from their CEO, Rick Parry who is an advocate of Big Picture and did little in the DCMS forum to press for any monies. Equally your ministers should appreciate, EPL and EFL use the same solicitor!

Fans fear this would be detrimental to football. The EPL has so far offered less than £50 million to the EFL clubs, ten of which are apparently desperate for monies, and around half of those payments are a loan offer. We fear offering loans to EFL clubs would worsen their futures. Without the means to service those loans, it could automatically render some clubs insolvent. It’s become clear the EPL has accepted Government’s goodwill but they don’t recognise the commitment to support teams beneath them, but prefer to use a pandemic as a power grab window. Within their charter of control, the rules they wish to impose is that the ‘Big Six’ clubs will decide who can purchase a football club in the EPL. So, the six clubs, who are trying to fatten their stomachs, are suggesting that they should determine who competes in their marketplace. This gives football fans’ grave concerns about the future of our national sport.

Richard Masters, CEO of the EPL, when questioned by the DCMS, confirmed words to the effect that football is nothing without fans. Fans in our country feel that the EPL is not a governing body but is simply an organisation operated by the ‘Big Six’ for these six well-documented clubs.

The ‘Big Six’ are clubs from London, Manchester and Liverpool. They are made up of Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City. These clubs are trying to control investment into every other city in England. We believe this is wrong and we fear it is anti competitive. We observe that 5 of those 6 Clubs have overseas owners and the 6th has an owner who lives overseas as a UK tax exile.

Were this to materialise, any club in England perceived to be a threat against the Big Six cartel through a takeover, would not be granted permission to compete and the takeover would be rejected or shrouded in obfuscated procrastination aimed at dissuading the interested parties from completing their investment. This has been the case with NUFC, and I am seeking your support to open this matter up into the public domain and to demand both expediency and transparency. The fans of NUFC have simply been kept in the dark too long.

The ‘Big Picture’ scheme was rejected by 20 votes to nil, and we urge government to accept that football CANNOT regulate itself any more and before the ‘Big Six’ return as Big Picture 2.0 we are seeking Government and Parliament support that you insist that Newcastle United’s application and current judicial process is heard in public and determined openly and transparently for the sake of the general public. If you choose to seek to regulate the sport yourselves in a fans led approach, our fans insist that NUFC’s case is heard before your own investigation and reports are carried out.

It’s for Newcastle fans to choose who we would like to run our club. In a poll of fans, 97% of NUFC fans confirmed that they would prefer the current bid of the PIF Consortium. That’s the choice of the paying fans. It antagonises our fans when Government views investors from Saudi Arabia as fit and proper allies in many important trade deals, such as British Aerospace trade, but then turns a ‘blind eye’ when six football clubs (disguised as the EPL) object to competition investment from that country and that investment is rejected. It’s good enough for you in Government and Parliament but maybe not for the people of Newcastle? Do you need reminding about the tens of thousands of jobs in the UK which exist entirely because of the UK’s trade from Saudi Arabia?

As one of your constituents, I’m asked to attend a polling booth and vote for you. Now it’s your turn to see if you support my concerns. I’ll see if you’re interested in investigating a cartel in a multi-billion-pound industry within our national sport who are using a pandemic to seize power. I would like you to write to me by return to indicate that you are going to write to the EPL and lobby Parliament to hear these matters urgently and without any further delay.

I would like you to support our concerns and lobby for the Newcastle United FC versus EPL dispute to be given a firm timeframe to be heard and be made transparent for the 100,000+ NUFC fans who sit during one of the most miserable times in our lives under lockdown asking questions without answers. This is the time I am going to be able to see if you, my MP,  has the time and determination to seek answers and bring this matter into the open.

Once the deliberate ‘bottleneck’ is opened and the EPL determines their case with NUFC it will allow the fans to have answers and the Newcastle Consortium Supporters to lodge their competition action and, hopefully, the EPL to fulfil their promise of funds to the lower league clubs. All should be done BEFORE government investigates the regulation as the two are separate matters.

In closing, I wish to ask you one question. Millions of pounds were promised in this takeover of Newcastle United by one of our richest trading allies into the Newcastle region and surrounding areas. Is it therefore fair that the British Government allows representatives from London, Manchester and Liverpool to decide who invests in Newcastle, Birmingham, Portsmouth or Leeds or any other English city that they compete with?

Please respond back to my email address below with your willingness to support me in seeking expedition and transparency of Newcastle United’s court case with the English Premier League to determine the owners right to sell his club to a willing buyer.

Yours sincerely,

[Full Name of Constituent]