Is Saudi Arabia funding Chelsea?
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2023
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amid a series of reported bids for unwanted Chelsea stars, host Adam Leventhal is joined by The Athletic's Matt Slater, to examine the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the new owners at Stamford Bridge...
Does the rapidly subscribed to 'conspiracy theory' that Chelsea are attempting to 'cheat FFP' stand up to questioning, is there a genuine conflict of interest for Newcastle's owners or are calls from rival supporters and pundits for a blanket embargo on transfers, premature?
Football correspondent David Ornstein also provides an update on the Kingdom's pursuit of various PL stars and the panel assess Saudi Arabia's longer-term footballing ambition.
Produced by Adonis Pratsides
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic. |
| 0:05.2 | Huge story coming out of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, |
| 0:09.3 | announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, |
| 0:12.6 | that a Saudi sports club investment and privatisation project will be put in place. |
| 0:17.0 | 70,000 fans in Qatar. |
| 0:18.7 | I met some of them. |
| 0:20.1 | They are football mad. They're football crazy and they're |
| 0:23.2 | crazy about the Premier League. It's the question being asked on social media, WhatsApp, group |
| 0:29.2 | chats and most probably around the dinner table in Premier League loving households. As a raft of |
| 0:34.9 | Chelsea stars are linked with the riches of the Saudi Pro League, what exactly |
| 0:40.0 | is the club's link with investment from Saudi Arabia? |
| 0:43.0 | I recognize that people are going to call me a hypocrite. |
| 0:46.5 | I think that you galvanized everyone against you've now partnered with. |
| 0:51.1 | So, of course I understand it is hypocritical. It sounds hypocritical. |
| 0:55.0 | And after taking on golf and winning, how far will the Saudi Pro League and the Kingdom's |
| 1:02.0 | big play on football actually go? |
| 1:09.0 | A little later on, our football correspondent David Ornstein is going to be joining us to talk about |
| 1:15.0 | some of the big names that might be getting ready to pack their bags to join the Saudi Pro League. |
| 1:21.1 | But let's start with the links between Chelsea, their majority stakeholder, Clear Lake Capital |
| 1:25.6 | and Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, PIF or PIF. |
| 1:30.1 | To do that, we need the Athletics Senior Football News reporter Matt Slater who has joined us. |
| 1:36.1 | How are you, Matt? |
... |
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