Newcastle United's anti-competition claim has again been delayed - this time until the end of September.
The news will be a bitter blow to Newcastle officials as they were looking for quicker progress on legal matters.
It means that Mike Ashley will definitely be overseeing the remainder of the transfer window and that the Toon owner's hopes of an August start have hit the buffers.
Court documents today confirmed that a jurisdiction hearing has been listed to take place on 27 September at 10:30am in the Anti-Competition claim against the Premier League.
The Premier League will continue to try to get the case thrown out of the Competiton Appeal Tribunal and Ashley is still waiting for an official hearing date.
However, sources close to Ashley are confident it will get a hearing date and the Premier League will be in a battle to defend themselves against it.
Once the case starts, Ashley is hoping for public disclosure and it is expected the top six's opposition to the Middle East consortium's bid to buy the Magpies will come to light.
Ashley discovered last week that arbitration had been postponed until "early 2022".
