For every fan who watched Newcastle United's preliminary anti-competition hearing - most came away with the belief that the issue of separation was the Premier League's main concern over the Saudi-led takeover of the club.
The top flight's QC referenced it and for many months, the question over whether the Saudi state needed to be listed as a director of Newcastle United seemed to be top of the list of concerns.
Yet, in the hours after news broke that Saudi Arabia has lifted the ban on Qatar's bein SPORTS being broadcast on its screens, effectively ending the issue of piracy which has dogged the takeover process, it now seems separation was not as important as it seemed.
LISTEN: THE TAKEOVER NEARS COMPLETION
Speaking on The Everything is Black and White Podcast, Mark Douglas and Andrew Musgrove discussed the theories behind separation and what the issue really meant.
"It shows that really separation was a proxy war for piracy really because separation doesn't matter half as much if your testing someone like Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan who has no connection it," Douglas said.
"The argument was - and I don't think, the Premier League wanted to test him as governor of the Public Investment while the state continued to block beIN SPORTS and be accused of state-sponsored piracy.
"But it becomes less of an issue now because suddenly the Saudi state are playing ball with the Premier League - so I'm assuming it renders that irrelevant.
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"So whether the buyers are state-sponsored or not becomes less relevant because it was all about piracy in the first place."
The deal for Newcastle is set to be complete within the next 24 hours as United fans finally get to see the back of Ashley after 14 years of ownership.
Listen to the full episode of The Everything is Black and White Podcast with Mark and Andrew here.
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