A prohibition on certain parties owning clubs would have led to protracted legal action as well, not in the least before the EU courts which were competent back then. I wouldn’t rule out that they would have done something equally stupid as Bosman and rubber stamped the death of football forever.

The UK government put huge pressure on the Premier League to approve the Saudi takeover of Newcastle too. If states threaten to hold back billions in investment in the UK, they're not going to give a shit about sporting integrity in football.

Fair enough tbf, that's on the PL for leaving that loophole open when they knew it was already happening in the EFL who then closed it.

PL only now tried and failed to close that loophole. Apparently they'll try again.

banduan Absolutely ridiculous but like goon says the fault is with the PL for not tightening their rules.

    It's not all that easy though. You have to keep in mind that from a competition law point of view each club is a separate undertaking and the clubs are considered to be competitors. I.e. every agreement they make is considered to be an agreement between competitors. Many of these agreements are by definition restrictions of competition by object and need to rely on an exemption in order to survive (some kind of overriding principle, to keep things simple). Even e.g. the agreement to sell TV rights collectively, which has been tested and found to be allowed by various courts over time. The PL, in other words the clubs who are competitors, agreeing that their competitors cannot do X or Y otherwise they cannot compete in the league attracts scrutiny. Each time a new type of agreement which has not been previously found to be allowed is put forward, it is open to attack based on competition law and back in the good old days also free movement rules. Scumbags like City know this all too well and exploit it.

      Gurgen I don't see how the clubs can be regarded as pure competitors in business (not football) terms, even if that's how it works legally (which I'm willing to believe).

      The value of each club is impacted by health of the Premier League as an overall entertainment offering, as valued by the rights deals ...

      Seems to me it's in the clubs' owners' average interests to be collegiate with each other, prevent financial meltdowns, allow everyone to make enough money to put together a semi-credible team, and so on. City's dominance has been harmful for the product.

      Football clubs are not ordinary businesses.

        I’m just glad that little City is fighting the “tyranny of the majority” and “discrimination” against Arabs. They’re the justice warriors we’ve been waiting for.

        14 days later

        No surprises to see why Villa and Chelsea are supporting City in getting the rules changed...

        then we have fans complaining how we're not matching Chelski's ability to sell players for high prices. It's all dodgy crap.

        5 months later

        Longest place he's ever stayed by some distance. Either he loves the endless money that much, or he just wants to stay to try his hardest to prevent his former assistant from winning any major trophies. I wouldn't put it past him to be petty enough to be caught up on the latter.

        City can't get relegated soon enough in my opinion.

        please just jail the lot of them. e