Chelsea’s owners are facing further questions about their links to Saudi Arabia after one of the club’s new directors, Jonathan Goldstein, brokered a £750million property deal with the Public Investment Fund, who also own Newcastle.
Sportsmail revealed earlier this month that PIF have billions of pounds managed by Chelsea’s new majority shareholder, Clearlake Capital, raising fears among some rivals about the potential for collaboration and possible conflicts of interest.
Those concerns will have increased on Monday with the announcement that Goldstein’s property company Cain International have agreed a joint investment with PIF in the Aman Group, who own luxury hotels and apartments.
Goldstein played a key role in facilitating Chelsea’s 4.25billion takeover earlier this summer along with LA Dodgers owner Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali of private equity firm Clearlake, who own 60 per cent of the club.
PIF paid £350m to buy Newcastle last year and are funding the LIV Series that has caused so much disruption to the world of golf, but Chelsea insist that Saudi money was not used to fund Clearlake’s purchase of Chelsea.
In another intriguing twist, however, two of Newcastle’s owners attended Chelsea’s first home game of the new regime on Sunday, with Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi guests in the executive box belonging to director Eghbali, the founding partner of Clearlake.
Staveley and Ghodoussi are believed to have used the audience with the Chelsea hierarchy to discuss transfers and press their case to take several of the club’s fringe players on loan.
Newcastle had hoped to sign Timo Werner before the German striker opted to return to RB Leipzig, but remain interested in loan moves for Conor Gallagher, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Armando Broja.
