the key point here is that “the giant Saudi sovereign wealth fund invests in the large private equity firm” is not evidence of backroom shadiness beyond the level of all backroom shadiness within capitalism in 2023.
The QIA likely also invests in Clearlake. No special deals are being cut. Hell, Inter and Chelsea are at loggerheads over a billion deals right now and I reckon Suning probably has some money in a Clearlake fund. Until I find more evidence than “giant sovereign wealth fund which also owns football teams invests in large private equity firm which also owns football team”, I’m not gonna think this is anything more than capitalism being bad, and nothing specific to this.
What’s even the logic to the conspiracy? PIF invests in Clearlake. Clearlake owns Chelsea, Chelsea’s success (and by extension, asset value) is inhibited by dead weight contracts, PIF takes them off hands, Chelsea becomes more successful and therefore asset value increases? Not gonna lie, doesn’t make sense.
There’s going to continue to be the appearance (and existence of) conflicts of interest so long as investment funds own football teams because other large companies own football teams and also invest in investment funds which own football teams.
As long as private equity firms hold football clubs as “assets”, this’ll continue. Get f***in used to it I guess (it’s unfortunately not going away), but I need a lot more evidence to suggest there’s anything uniquely shady occurring here. I welcome the evidence