Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has engaged top sports QC Nick De Marco in a bid to force through the Saudi-backed takeover.
The Toon chief is desperate to bank £305m by selling the club to the Saudi Public Investment Fund, and has signalled he is ready for a legal fight, says the Mirror.
The Premier League and Newcastle United are at loggerheads over the failed takeover which the PIF withdrew from in July, citing delays and post-COVID economic problems.
Newcastle issued a statement last week accusing chief exec Richard Masters of acting inappropriately, and claiming the league had rejected the deal “in its owners and directors test."
But the Premier League hit back insisting the “test" stage, overseen but the board not Masters personally, had yet to be reached.
Blackstone Chambers today revealed that “Shaheed Fatima QC and Nick De Marco QC are acting for Newcastle United FC and Mike Ashley (instructed by Dentons) in a dispute with the Premier League about its rejection of a takeover bid made by PCP Capital Partners, the Reuben Brothers and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) based on its Owners and Directors test."
