A vote on Associated Party Transaction (APT) rule amendments was pulled from the agenda at late notice ahead of a Premier League shareholders’ meeting today (Thursday).
APT rules were introduced three years ago in December 2021, two months after the Saudi Arabia-backed takeover of Newcastle United.
Manchester City brought a legal case against the Premier League over APTs in June — after a new version of the rules was voted through in February — claiming they were unlawful. Under Premier League rule X.31, neither the league nor City have to publish the result — they would both have to agree before it was made public.
The case — which is separate from the one regarding City’s more than 100 alleged financial breaches of the Premier League’s rules — was heard by an arbitration panel for two weeks.
The APT rules are aimed at stopping clubs from signing inflated sponsorship deals with firms that are linked with them, as well as preventing them transferring players for less or more than their market value between teams in the same ownership group.
At today’s Premier League meeting this morning, clubs were set to vote on an APT rule relating to restricting access to the ‘databank’ the league uses to do its assessments and investigations. The databank contains sensitive information about clubs’ commercial deals, and forms part of the league’s fair market value assessment on new agreements.
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However, the vote on the databank was removed at late notice and, as a result, nothing relating to APTs was on the agenda today.
The teams had also been due to vote on a measure requiring their staff to use a club device to conduct club business, which the league or any other investigatory body could examine in cases of potential wrongdoing, but this was similarly removed from the agenda.
Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy was pictured leaving the meeting (Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)
Three things, though, were voted on. One related to some of the rules for the National League Cup, the competition between Premier League Under-21 sides and National League teams that The Athletic revealed was being discussed in April. The cup was officially launched last week.
Another was the reappointment of Mai Fyfield and Dharmash Mistry as independent non-executive directors of the Premier League for another three years, and the third was to allow media rights guru Paul Molnar to proceed with rights-related negotiation. All three votes were passed unanimously.
Elsewhere, the introduction of semi-automated offside technology was discussed. The league had been aiming to implement the technology after one of the autumn international breaks — the second of which begins in 10 days — but this now may not come until the winter.
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The meeting, which was wrapped up in less than two hours, took place at the five-star Rosewood Hotel in central London.
Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali was spotted going to the meeting with Crystal Palace’s Steve Parish also in attendance. Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy was pictured standing at a bus stop in his suit after the event.
Additional reporting: David Ornstein
(Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
