Newcastle United owners Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund contemplating buying another top European club

PIF is eyeing taking stakes in another club

According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Newcastle United FC's Saudi Arabian owners are looking to buy a top European football team as the country is ready to invest even more money in sports.

According to the person, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has recently shifted its focus from merely considering adding lesser teams to its football stable to maybe purchasing a further club from one of Europe's five major leagues.

The change in tactics comes less than a week after UEFA, the body that governs European football, announced that it would permit a number of clubs with the same owner to compete in its elite competitions, the source said, declining to be named because the conversation involved confidential information.

Despite their individual owners owning stakes in other participating clubs, UEFA granted permission to French club Toulouse FC, English Premier League clubs Brighton & Hove Albion FC, and Aston Villa FC, as well as Toulouse FC, to participate in its competitions the following season.

After agreeing to take efforts to ensure that these clubs were managed separately from one another, the decision was made.

It represents a significant change in how UEFA manages the multi-club model after years of doing so by forbidding teams with the same owner from competing against one another in leagues like the Champions League and Europa League in order to protect the prestige of those events.

But when affluent owners from the US and the Middle East wanted greater exposure to the world's most widely watched sport, football's ownership landscape underwent a significant change.

Football today frequently has multi-club possession, with supporters citing the possibility to cut costs by exchanging players and data among teams and securing more advantageous business arrangements. The biggest names in a group are fed at the expense of smaller teams, according to critics, who claim that this destroys competition.

Jamie Reuben and Amanda Staveley from the UK participated in a buyout of Newcastle United in 2021 that was led by PIF and cost more than £300 million ($391 million).

Newcastle United will participate in the lucrative Champions League next season thanks to the owners' recent significant investments in the Premier League club.