Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman have to resign after these Premier League revelations

Fair to say that Gary Hoffman and in particular, Richard Masters, aren’t particularly well thought of by Newcastle United fans.

The Chairman and the Chief Executive of the Premier League, they are two key figures that Newcastle fans blame for the takeover not happening.

Even those NUFC supporters who maybe see other issues as also / instead being key in the takeover not happening, you would still struggle to find any Newcastle fan who believes the Premier League pair acted with total fairness, integrity and even-handedness regarding the attempted buying and selling of Newcastle United.

What about though the wider Premier League, all 20 clubs and all of their fans, do Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman always act with total fairness, integrity and even-handedness on behalf of them all?

Well, I think you need to read this below.

An excellent exclusive from David Conn at The Guardian exposing some quite sickening behaviour by Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman.

The two Premier League executives doing anything but the right thing when they are supposed to be working equally on behalf of all 20 PL clubs (and by association their fans) and for their benefit.

The man from The Guardian revealing that the Premier League executives kept secret the Project Big Picture plans from those clubs outside the ‘big six’ clubs.

A revelation that Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman held a meeting with the ‘big six’ to discuss the fallout from the publication of the Project Big Picture proposals without informing the other 14 PL other clubs.

It is quite scandalous, with David Conn revealing that on 13 October, Gary Hoffman and Richard Masters met with senior people from Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool, two days after the plans were published in the The Telegraph exclusive exposed the Project Big Picture plans, that meeting with the ‘big six’ taking place a day before all 20 PL clubs had a scheduled meeting on 14 October.

What kind of a cowboy operation is this and exactly who are Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman working for? It certainly doesn’t appear to be looking after the interests of ALL 20 Premier League clubs, fairly and equally.

David Conn says that the Premier League have now confirmed that Gary Hoffman had been given a copy of the Project Big Picture documents by Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck (who has a leading role in who gets appointed as Premier League Chairman and Chief Executive…) BUT had failed to tell the other 14 clubs he had a copy, nor that he had emailed the big six in positive terms about the Big Picture project on 8 October, before the leak.

The Guardian report says that some of the ‘other 14’ clubs are furious about the way that Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman have acted, as well as the behaviour of the ‘big six’, I’m not surprised, surely it should be amazing if any of the other 14 aren’t furious with the way these Premier League executives have acted, as well as the big six clubs.

As the report points out, when The Telegraph exposed the Big Picture power grab plans led by Liverpool and Man Utd,  the Premier League released a statement saying it had “seen media reports” about the plans, and condemned them, saying “a number of the individual proposals … could have a damaging impact on the whole game”…yet behind the scenes, both Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman knew all about the plans before that exclusive by The Telegraph.

Never mind actually getting involved with this kind of divide and rule behaviour / plotting, if any Premier League executive such as Masters or Hoffman becomes aware of any secret plotting by a small number of clubs, they are surely duty bound to then inform all the other clubs of this.

As I said earlier, they are employed (supposedly!) equally by all 20 shareholders (the 20 PL clubs at any one time) and have the same equal duty of care to each of the 20.

I don’t see how Richard Masters and Gary Hoffman have any alternative but to resign, now that their behaviour has been exposed.

Although having said that, when you look at this year in politics, it appears that nobody is now honour bound to resign when their shameful behaviour is exposed.