In May 2020, the acquisition of the UK’s Newcastle United Premier League football club by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia seemed imminent.
But during the last week of May, the WTO confirmed that it would be releasing a 130-page report in June that directly implicates Saudi Arabia in beoutQ. This news has again placed the acquisition into uncertain territory.
Read the latest developments in The Guardian (May 26)
Why this matters:
The coming WTO report appears to confirm an ironic situation, in which a Saudi-backed fund is trying to acquire a club whose parent league’s programming has been distributed by a Saudi-backed piracy operation.
Piracy Monitor has reported on the situation multiple times. A 2019 study by MarkMonitor confirmed that beoutQ was carrying stolen Premier League and Newcastle United matches.
