Finance guru: Chelsea have ‘legal issue’ as £750m deal under fire
The latest controversy centred on Chelsea and their relationship with the Saudi Public Investment Fund is fundamentally a “legal issue” regarding the definition of conflict of interest.
That is the view of finance expert Doctor Dan Plumley, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the links between the new Chelsea ownership regime and the ultra-rich Newcastle United backers.
It was widely reported in July that PIF have provided finance for private equity firm Clearlake Capital, who finalised a takeover of Chelsea in May.
Both parties have stressed that no funds from PIF were used in the £2.5billion buyout.
Per the Daily Mail last Monday (15 August), PIF and Clearlake have come under fire because of a recent £750million property deal engineered by new Chelsea director Jonathan Goldstein on behalf of the PIF.
This has raised questions about whether the business alliance between the two finance giants could represent a conflict of interest.
Plumley claims that the buck stops with the Premier League, who ultimately set out how conflict of interest is defined.
“This is a question of governance,” the Sheffield Hallam University expert told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“We could define conflict of interest. There are legal definitions, but they are all set around the governing practices of the organisation or the team.
“This is one that needs to be looked at against the governance of the Premier League. They will define what conflict of interest is and they will define where the bar is set.
“It’s really tricky because we could all sit here and define it for ourselves, but ultimately it’s down to how the Premier League defines it.
“That is where we get into the real legal issues that a lot of us don’t see.”
In other news, Alan Hutton makes emphatic Conor Gallagher claim after journalist’s Chelsea transfer update.