Chelsea’s Saudi links were cleared more than a year ago

Chelsea are set to get a major bailout this summer from Saudi Arabian clubs, who are going to swoop in and buy a lot of our deadwood.

It’s a real miracle for us, and it’s so perfectly timed that some other teams have raised questions about what’s going on. Is there some kind of arrangement between these Saudi teams and Clearlake Capital, the group who own Chelsea? We know there is already investment from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund in Clearlake.

But any suspicions that there have been any dodgy dealing behind the scenes have been dismissed by Chelsea, and in fact today the Daily Telegraph reveal in an exclusive that the Premier League were given extra assurances by the group that the Saudi Public Investment Fund was not part of the Clearlake Group (beyond just having invested in it, among many other things, at some point).

The top flight is said to be “entirely satisfied there are no conflict of interest issues.”

This investigation came about because Newcastle’s co-ownership by the Saudi PIF, so it was intended to prevent that kind of conflict of interest rather than anything related to Chelsea and Saudi Pro League clubs, but if they were satisfied that their involvement remains purely as minor investors in a huge fund.

Let’s hope the rest of the league are satisfied by that – certainly some pundits are throwing around some pretty big questions.