Premier League bombshell email on behalf of 11 clubs amid Wolves vote
A Premier League executive acting for 11 top-flight clubs requested a ban on related-party transactions just days after Newcastle United’s takeover.
That is according to the published ruling from Manchester City’s arbitration case against the Premier League after both sides claimed victory. Manchester City have declared that the Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules have been found to be unlawful, but the Premier League have insisted they will ‘continue to operate the existing APT system, taking into account the findings made by the tribunal’.
Five days after Newcastle’s takeover, in October 2021, an executive at another Premier League club, whose name has been redacted, emailed the top-flight on behalf of his club and 10 others to state that notice was to be given of a vote in five days’ time ‘or sooner if permitted to introduce a short-term ban on any related party transactions of any kind’.
He wrote: “This rule should have the widest possible definition of a ‘related party’ perhaps using the takeover code definitions when applied to companies like those in the Gulf region…the rules covering related party transactions and new cost control measures, together with any sanctions for breaches, should be formulated by the PL legal and financial teams with support from a working group of club CEOs who can volunteer.”
Richard Masters, the Premier League’s chief executive, emailed all member clubs three days later and confirmed that the top-flight would start a consultation process to review certain aspects of PSR rules, including the status of related-party transactions. Attached to Masters’ email were draft amendments to the rules, which would put in place a moratorium on what were now to be called APTs. These amendments were prepared with the help of external legal experts and Masters noted that the drafting could be reviewed at the scheduled shareholders’ meeting the following week.
On the morning of October 18, before the shareholders’ meeting, there was a 40-minute summit of the legal advisory group, which was a long-standing working group of in-house lawyers from the clubs, whose meetings were attended by Premier League representatives. Jamie Herbert and Kevin Plump, the general counsel of the Premier League, ‘acknowledged that the takeover has highlighted that we now have a spectrum of owners of clubs with some complex structures and corporate relationship’ and added that it was an ‘appropriate time to assess whether these rules are still fit for purpose’.
The shareholders’ meeting took place later that day at 4pm and a proposal was made that there should be no APTs until a new financial controls advisory group had been formed, which would include representatives from eight clubs, including Newcastle.
Eighteen clubs – including Wolves – ultimately voted to temporarily suspend APTs. Newcastle were the only club to vote against while Manchester City abstained.
Fast forward to another shareholders’ meeting, on December 14, and new permanent APT rules came into force after the same 18 clubs again voted them through.
