Don’t blame Newcastle fans for being ecstatic at their new Saudi owners – for them, it’s all about cleansing, not sportswashing
The chorus of condemnation generated by the Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle United will echo long after the ink has dried on the £300 million deal – just don’t expect fans to be listening all that intently.
Thursday finally saw the conclusion of one of the most complex, all-encompassing takeover sagas football has ever seen.
After dragging on for 18 months – and involving geopolitical rivalries, TV piracy rows, and outrage over human rights abuses – a consortium bankrolled by the largesse of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) finally has the keys to Newcastle United.
Just as their Qatari rivals and Abu Dhabi neighbors did before them, the Saudis have their launchpad into the football big leagues – and in their case it comes on the North-East coast of England.
From now on, Saudi cash will be expected to turbocharge Newcastle from Premier League strugglers back into the swashbuckling, title-challenging force they were in the 1990s.
Fantasy shopping lists containing Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland or Kevin De Bruyne are likely already being prepared among the Geordie faithful – and in all honesty, who could blame them?
Wearied by the 14-year tenure of the widely reviled Mike Ashley, for most Magpies fans the Saudi takeover could not come soon enough, as evidenced by the outpouring of ecstasy around St. James Park when the news was confirmed that Ashley had finally gone.
It has been a fraught 18 months for fans who were initially teased by the news that a deal was in the offing last March, placing beer cans at the ready, only to put them back on ice (or in some cases bin them altogether) when the deal hit the rocks last July.
The stumbling blocks were mainly twofold: the alleged Saudi facilitation of pirate broadcasts from Qatari-based Premier League partner beIN Sports, and a supposed lack of clarity as to whom would ultimately be running Newcastle.
Regarding the former, the Saudis have now lifted their ban on beIN Sports, while Riyadh is also said to be seeking to settle Qatar’s $1 billion arbitration claim over pirate broadcasts to linked to the Kingdom through the BeoutQ network.
Concerning the second hindrance, even though Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is chairman of the PIF – a sovereign wealth fund behemoth with a professed aim of acquiring $1 trillion worth of assets by 2025 – the Premier League is said to have been given assurances that the Saudi state would not be involved in the day-to-day running of Newcastle.
There are no illusions, however, that the lion’s share of the cash is being stumped up by the Saudis, even if the glamorous face of the bid has been UK businesswoman Amanda Staveley – who will gain a 10% share through her PCP Capital Partners group, alongside a similar stake for billionaire British property tycoons the Reuben brothers.
Given what’s taken place at Manchester City, where a rise from the depths of despair has been fueled by petrocash from Abu Dhabi, or the assembly of the all-star cast at PSG through the riches furnished by their Qatari owners, Newcastle fans will be dreaming of something similar.
Downtrodden since the heady days of the 1990s and early 2000s, the St James’ Park masses have seen their club oscillate between misery and mediocrity during the grim reign of Ashley.
This is a man who put Newcastle up for sale almost as soon as he bought it, an absentee owner who perceived a proud institution through the prism of promoting his tacky sportswear chain, who ostracized and infuriated club icons, and who brought in his geezer-type pals from down south supposedly just to rile the Geordie faithful up north.
Ashley made no secret that he had long wanted a way out; likewise, Newcastle fans were unabashed in their wish to hasten him to the exit.
Indeed, according to a survey from the Newcastle United Supporters’ Trust survey on Tuesday, a whopping 93% of members were in favor of the takeover.
Against them are voices from outside the club, who point to the Saudis’ human rights record, their penchant for ‘sportswashing’ their image by putting on F1 races, boxing bouts, and WWE extravaganzas.
Even as the takeover was imminent, the voices of outrage came from Amnesty International and the fiancée of murdered Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
As Newcastle fans roll out the red carpet for their new owners, it doesn’t mean many are not conflicted about the Saudis, or that they do not care at all about the allegations of human rights abuses and treatment of women and minorities.
Fans will be fully aware of the metaphorical baggage their new owners bring with them on their private jets whenever they are in town.
What that doesn’t mean, though, is that Newcastle fans should be the ones called on to dissent against the deal or come out in protest against it.
Many will also casually point out that, in terms of letting ‘regimes’ or questionable owners into football, that horse bolted long ago.
What about Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners, or PSG’s Qatari backers? And what about the likes of Manchester United, who already have a ‘strategic partnership’ with the Saudi General Sports Authority?
Everywhere you look, football has been sullied by dubious associations in the pursuit of money.
Why begrudge Newcastle fans their chance to be lifted from their chain of despair by the promise of riches from the Middle East which will bring investment flowing into the team and local area – something that an austerity-obsessed UK government would otherwise not concern itself with?
There will be the liberal metropolitan football scribes who will broadcast their disgust at the deal, signaling their virtues while continuing to cover the club and sampling its matchday hospitality.
The chorus against the Saudis will only increase in the coming days, before football eventually settles into a wary acceptance of its cash-rich new movers and shakers.
But amid the opprobrium and uproar, Newcastle’s Toon Army do not deserve to have others’ virtue-signaling projected onto them, or to be called on to take some kind of moral stand when others at far higher stations in the game have long failed to do so.
Instead, it should be remembered most of all that they are simply glad to be rid of a man who sucked the life out of their club in such a soul-destroying union for the past 14 years.
Where many will see ‘sportswashing’ from the Saudis, for most among the Newcastle faithful it will be removing the stains of one of the most unedifying eras that fans can remember.
By Liam Tyler
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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