How generous of them. . .

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Newcastle United will be allowed sponsorship deals with Saudi Arabian companies as long as the Premier League considers them "fair market value".

On Tuesday Premier League shareholders removed the temporary block put on the club since its controversial takeover.

Clubs have been uneasy over the takeover, which prompted Premier League chairman Gary Hoffman to decide to step down at the end of January 2022.

The Premier League board will decide what is "fair market value".

There was a concern Newcastle could sign deals with companies closely aligned to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund that provided much of the finance for the takeover, and which would be used to inflate their spending capacity under Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

Analysis
BBC Sport's Simon Stone

The unhappiness within the Premier League around the Newcastle takeover will be tempered to some extent by this move.

However, what it has done is allow Newcastle the scope to start arranging their own commercial deals in line with their status as a newly-enriched club with roots in Saudi Arabia.

It will be fascinating to see whether deals such as Manchester City's with Etihad Airlines are done because they can be the trigger to inject millions into the club, creating a transfer budget from which Eddie Howe's squad can be improved.

Short term, Newcastle are in a relegation scrap. In the medium term, their future looks very bright.

One idea - to block all related commercial deals - was quickly discarded.

Instead, the Premier League has agreed that what are regarded as 'associated party transactions' will be allowed but subject to heavy scrutiny.

The Premier League board will take guidance from an independent external assessor on deals.

In addition, they will have access to a confidential data bank, created by the Premier League, which will accumulate previous commercial deals across the league to assess their value.

League chiefs hope this will prevent manipulation of FFP regulations.

It is understood Newcastle and Manchester City actually voted against the new rules, with questions about how "fair-market value" process will work in practice and whether the measures are too broad.