“We are not asking for a team that wins”, said a banner, “we are asking for a club to try.” The one simple sentence captured it all: the pain and resentment, anguish and fury, of the years spent under Mike Ashley’s squalid ownership of their club. A time when the British billionaire seemed to enjoy emptying his fans of hope. The slogan has since become familiar, while the banner itself made another appearance last week. This time, it wasn’t a rallying cry for a riot; it was the story of a won battle.
Ashley, what’s finally gone. Suddenly, Newcastle had gone from being irrelevant under-achievers to the richest club in football, backed by the unimaginable wealth of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s investment vehicle, of which Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of the country and de facto sovereign, is the president. Three fan groups For the fans, the switch was enough to gather outside the club’s famous St James’s Park stadium in Thobes and he turns and waves the Saudi flag as he sings that their club has at least been returned to them.
There are also many fans who are uncomfortable with this connection, the kingdom’s precedents on women’s and gay rights, its persecution of dissidents, the brutal and relentless war in Yemen, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But there are many others – according to a poll last year, 97 percent of fans were in favor of the Saudi takeover – who were willing to turn a blind eye to this ethical dilemma.
These fans argue that their new owner is no worse than the Abu Dhabi owners of Manchester City, or how Liverpool FC is sponsored by a bank accused of laundering drug cartel profits. They also argue that if Britain is happy to sell weapons to the Saudis, it might as well sell its football teams. Then, there are still others – those who abused Khashoggi’s widow for daring to challenge the morality of acquisition – who are perfectly happy to embrace it.
Reasons to Buy PIF did not buy Newcastle because they love football or the leafy city in the north east of England. It did this to diversify its economy, to weave strategic alliances in sport and culture to rehabilitate its image, to associate Saudi Arabia with football before associating it with the starving children of Yemen. Newcastle United and those fans are being used, just like Manchester City or PSG or Chelsea – or football as a whole – are being used by those who have several aces to grind. But the blame should also go to the authorities who have allowed this to happen over and over again: the Premier League, UEFA, FIFA, bodies that are supposed to protect and love the sport, but which instead sold it to the highest bidder. To the natural, logical, even inevitable conclusion that the only way for clubs to compete, the only way for owners to restore hope, is through money. And Saudi Arabia has more money.
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