![\"Khaldoon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Khaldoon-Al-Mubarak-Yasir-Al-Rumayyan-Man-City-1140x641.jpg\")
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(Credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/jamesmurray-150x150.jpg\")
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Tue 7 October 2025 10:45, UK <\/p>\n
Manchester City and Newcastle United\u2019s owners have been heavily involved in the recent purchase of Electronic Arts (EA).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Saudi Public Investment Fund\u00a0(PIF<\/a>)\u00a0is spearheading a consortium, which includes\u00a0Man City<\/a>\u2018s\u00a0co-owners Silver Lake, to buy EA for \u00a341billion. <\/p>\n Silicon Valley-based private equity firm Silver Lake saw its shares in Man City reduce<\/a> to around 17 per cent last year, while Sheikh Mansour owns a controlling stake at the Etihad Stadium. <\/p>\n PIF purchased Newcastle<\/a> from Mike Ashley alongside the Reuben Brothers and Amanda Staveley<\/a>\u2019s PCP Capital Partners in October 2021. <\/p>\n PIF has now joined forces with Silver Lake and other investors to seal the mega-money purchase of EA \u2013 the maker of the popular video game EA Sports FC.\u00a0<\/p>\n Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson<\/a> exclusively told Football Insider any deals Newcastle do with EA could now have to receive the necessary approval, with PIF\u2019s investment potentially making it an associated party transaction (APT). <\/p>\n Newcastle have seen their progress blocked by the APT rules<\/a> since their Saudi owners took over at St James\u2019 Park four years ago. <\/p>\n MORE FOOTBALL INSIDER STORIES<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to\u00a0Football Insider about the EA deal,\u00a0Borson\u00a0said:\u00a0\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean a great deal except that where there are deals that football clubs do as a matter of course with EA in particular, obviously the scale of their video game franchise is big and significant in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be some sponsorship deals, certainly EA are already a partner of Manchester City. I haven\u2019t checked the Newcastle situation, but that would then potentially fall into a deal that needs to be approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow, it wouldn\u2019t be difficult to approve it because there\u2019s so many comparatives for it that you wouldn\u2019t have a problem, but it\u2019s just an additional reinforcement of how where you\u2019ve got very large scale investors anyway, so for example, there was a piece in the Financial Times purely looking at Silver Lake\u2019s move to become the preeminent venture capital house in the world, and the figurehead there, Egon Durban, is City\u2019s director. <\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not just the key guy at Silver Lake, but he\u2019s also the actual individual who\u2019s on City\u2019s board.\u201d <\/p>\n Silver Lake initially bought a 10 per cent stake in the City Football Group (CFG) \u2013\u00a0Man City\u2019s ownership group<\/a> \u2013 in 2019 before later increasing its shareholding.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tottenham could agree blockbuster takeover deal<\/p>\n Borson believes\u00a0Tottenham could be bought by a sovereign wealth fund<\/a>\u00a0and a private equity firm in the future following the developments surrounding PIF and Silver Lake.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just interesting that sort of convergence between major global investors and those major investors in global business also investing in the Premier League,\u201d said Borson. <\/p>\n \u201cThere are other significant non-sovereign fund related investors. Silver Lake are obviously an independent fund, but also they do partner a lot with sovereign wealth funds, so you have this combination. <\/p>\n \u201cIt would not be a surprise, for example, if ultimately Tottenham Hotspur ended up being purchased by a combination of some form of sovereign wealth fund and potentially some form of Silicon Valley, venture capital, private equity house.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s more an indication of just how profile the Premier League is that investors of this nature are the same investors that are looking to buy TikTok, EA and other very significant, high-profile consumer businesses and also are involved in football.\u201d <\/p>\n Tottenham\u2019s owners are currently insisting the club is not for sale<\/a>\u00a0after recently turning down approaches from interested parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n For more Man City news, follow us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0or join our brand new\u00a0WhatsApp Channel<\/a>\u00a0for instant updates to be sent straight to your phone. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Getty Images) Tue 7 October 2025 10:45, UK Manchester City and Newcastle United\u2019s owners have been heavily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,399,941,18095,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-183252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-manchester-city","tag-newcastle-united","tag-pif","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Yassir](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-1347336743_1200x824-1024x703.jpg\")
Credit: Getty ImagesNewcastle\u2019s deals could have to be approved after PIF latest<\/p>\n![\"Man](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Khaldoon-Al-Mubarak-Ferran-Sorriano-1024x576.png\")
Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/joe-lewis-1024x783.jpg\")
Credit: Imago<\/p>\n