The Premier League is conducting an assessment of its governance, as pressure to expand criteria by which it assesses prospective owners grows. The league is looking to add a human rights component to its Owners’ and Directors’ test.
This comes after protests were raised by the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund takeover of Newcastle United Football Club in 2021. Alongside supporters and human rights groups, the UK government’s fan-led review called for an enhanced test, which would assess the candidate’s integrity.
The fan-led review, led by Conservative MP Tracey Crouch, suggested the test should assess whether “The proposed owner is of good character such that they should be allowed to be custodian of an important community asset.” This review was positively received by the Government, and there is expectation that its recommendations will be enacted into law, including the appointment of an independent regulator for the game.
The Premiere League held two meetings with Amnesty International to draw up a fully human-rights compliant owners’ test. The organisation suggested Premier League board should consider if a prospective owner or director had taken part in serious violations of international human rights law or any conduct against the league’s anti-discriminatory policy.
Following the Saudi Arabia PIF buyout of Newcastle, Sacha Deshmukh, the Amnesty’s International UK’s CEO stated “There is now huge disquiet over the cynical use of English football to sportswash human rights abuse.”
He later continued “The rules concerning who owns and runs English football clubs are woefully inadequate, with no bar on ownership for those complicit in acts of torture, slavery, human trafficking or even war crimes … We’re keen to discuss with Richard Masters our ideas for a human rights-compliant Owners’ and Directors’ test.”
The need for a reinforced owners’ test has recently been highlighted again by Labour party members, who called for sanctions against the owner of Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The ambiguity surrounding the owner’s alleged closeness to Vladimir Putin and to Russia was taken to support the need for transparency and robustness in the test for prospective owners.
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