{"id":14775,"date":"2020-05-27T12:20:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T07:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/?p=14775"},"modified":"2020-05-27T12:20:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T07:20:53","slug":"wto-ruling-against-s-arabia-threatens-newcastle-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/14775","title":{"rendered":"WTO ruling against S.Arabia threatens Newcastle deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6><strong>LONDON<\/strong><\/h6>\n<div>\n<p>Saudi Arabia\u2019s proposed takeover of Newcastle United FC was thrown into doubt on Tuesday after media reported the World Trade Organization found it had breached international law by backing pirating of Premier League matches.<\/p>\n<p>The 130-page WTO report will be published in mid-June, but a copy has already been sent to the Premier League, which gave evidence against Saudi Arabia as part of the process. The WTO ruled that Saudi Arabia was behind the BeoutQ pirating streaming platform, according to the media reports.<\/p>\n<p>The rights to Premier League matches in the Middle East and North Africa region are owned by beIN Sports, which is owned by Saudi\u2019s regional rival Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>English football clubs claim Saudi piracy of matches of the Premier League \u2013 which Newcastle United is part of \u2013 is actively damaging their commercial interest in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside the Premier League, FIFA, UEFA, La Liga and others have all tried to take legal action against beoutQ in Saudi Arabia, but to no avail. A case lodged against Saudi at the WTO led to the report.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi officials deny the allegations, but a US government investigation previously found a link between the Saudi government and BeoutQ, and the US has put Saudi on its watch list for \u201cnotorious markets for counterfeiting and piracy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If a link can be proven between the Saudi government and BeoutQ, they could potentially fail the \u201cfit and proper owner test\u201d banning owners who commit crimes abroad that would also be crimes in the UK, as well as those who give false, misleading, or inaccurate information to the Premier League.<\/p>\n<p>Were the deal to go forward, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) \u2013 chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman \u2013 would hold an 80% stake in the club in a deal worth \u00a3300 million ($370 million).<\/p>\n<p>In addition to supporting pirating, Saudi Arabia is accused of human rights abuses and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.<\/p>\n<p>Both the UN and Western intelligence agencies believe bin Salman ordered the murder of Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, a charge bin Salman denies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON Saudi Arabia\u2019s proposed takeover of Newcastle United FC was thrown into doubt on Tuesday after media reported the World Trade Organization found it had breached international law by backing pirating of Premier League matches. The 130-page WTO report will be published in mid-June, but a copy has already been sent to the Premier League, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,1473,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-saudi-arab","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14777,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14775\/revisions\/14777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}