Simon Jordan has taken aim at the 'cartel' of clubs who are 'blocking' Newcastle United's progress.
The former Crystal Palace owner has spoken out just a few months after it emerged that an unnamed executive contacted the Premier League on behalf of his club and 10 others to request that notice be given of a vote to introduce a short-term ban on related-party transactions. This email was sent five days after the takeover was finally completed in 2021.
The senior figure in question was cross-examined during Manchester City's legal dispute with the Premier League and openly admitted that the Newcastle buy-out 'heightened' concerns and 'encouraged the clubs to seek action'. A tribunal panel ultimately found these associated party transaction (APT) rules to be 'void and unenforceable', but the new regulations, which were voted through in November, remain in place subject to another legal challenge from Manchester City.
The current PSR rules are also in force as clubs continue to trial squad cost regulations and top-to-bottom anchoring in shadow for another season. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire previously argued that the rules hit clubs like Newcastle 'hardest' because permitted losses have not risen in line with inflation since the regulations were introduced in 2013 and Jordan has tabled two possible solutions.
Jordan first put forward the concept of progressive taxation, which would allow clubs to spend above the guidelines if they pay an additional sum that filters down the pyramid. Jordan then suggested that new owners should have the ability to splurge more in the first three years of their reign, such as a multiple of the average outlay of the Premier League, before then falling in line in year four.
However, at a time when Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is vehemently opposed to the concept of anchoring, which would level the playing field a little by imposing a universal spending limit regardless of a club's commercial might, Jordan has cast doubt on the rules ever changing to suit disruptors like Newcastle.
"This idea that sustainability forms part of the acronym that supports the profit regime is just ridiculous," he told talkSPORT. "The 14 clubs that don't like this are going to vote against it because they are not interested in the vested interest of Newcastle.
"You only need seven clubs to block it. Who is going to block it? Who is going to block Newcastle? Gee, I wonder.
"Let me have a think. Do Arsenal want Newcastle coming into their little hen house? Do Chelsea? Do Liverpool? No, they are going to do the very thing this thing was not supposed to do, which is create a cartel.
"Those that are already there can go, 'Thanks very much. The drawbridge is shut so that's the end of it. Newcastle can go into the long grass and maybe in 15 years' time, when you have built yourself up inch by inch and yard by yard, then, maybe, you can join our gang'."
