Premier league club Newcastle United's proposed £300m takeover bid by Saudi Arabian syndicate including Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund PIF, PCP Capital Partners and Reuben Brothers has has been pulled out.
On 30 July 2020, after an unending wait for clarifications by the English Premier League Football Association, the Saudis announced that they will be backing out of the deal:
"As an autonomous and purely commercial investor, our focus was on building long-term value for the club, its fans and the community as we remained committed to collaboration, practicality and proactivity through a difficult period of global uncertainty and significant challenges for the fans and the club.
"Ultimately, during the unforeseeably prolonged process, the commercial agreement between the Investment Group and the club's owners expired and our investment thesis could not be sustained."
The Takeover which was widely criticized because of Saudi Arabia's unfavorable human rights history would have seen a lot of investments that would have undoubtedly made made Newcastle a force to be reckoned with in European football in a few years time. Recall that such takeovers at English Premier league side Manchester City and French side Paris Saint German coincided with the evolution of the clubs to Giants in European football.
The PIP whose chairman is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman earlier this year had a £300m takeover bid accepted by Newcastle owner Mike Ashley but received a lot of backlash because of their links with the Saudi Arabian state.
One of the people that criticised the takeover was Hatice Cengiz - the fiancee journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was aledgedly murdered by the Saudi Arabian state.
Because of the many backlashes received, the Premier league delayed the takeover as their lawyers struggled to look at the links between the PIF and the Saudi Arabian Government.
Fans of the Magpies will be gutted as they were already imagining life under a new owner following years of under - investment by current club owner Mike Ashley.
Caveat: image for illustrative purpose