St James’ Sheikh-up long overdue... but ‘celebrating’ Toon fans had better be very careful what they wish for
unusual in Saudi Arabia but is just the latest to come to light. The timing is grotesquely perfect. In the extremely unlikely event Newcastle supporters needed, or wanted, reminding of Saudi state brutality and human rights abuses, here it is. Again, with grim timing, figures published by one British-based human rights organisation claimed there had been 800 executions in Saudi Arabia since the current rulers took over. Bin Salman is the deputy prime minister, but his dad, who is the King and prime minister, has effectively given him control.
Again, Bin Salman is the chairman of the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund which is buying Newcastle.
Such is the widespread dislike of Mike Ashley (above) among fans, any new owner with the resources to seriously invest in the club and to seriously compete with the elite
England skipper leads the praise for a new national hero would be welcome. Even if you are the most powerful man in a kingdom that beheaded 37 people in a single day last year. Thursday is the anniversary of that mass execution, by the way. Perhaps the fit and proper persons test can take place then.
And you can get it. Get why Newcastle fans will be happy with the prospect of wealthy Middle Eastern ownership and ecstatic at the departure of Ashley.
And you can get it when they point to the involvement of other countries in football that might not have the cleanest human rights record.
And you can get it when they highlight how this country sells arms to Saudi and our governments enjoy a relationship. And you can get it when they produce snaps of Gianni Infantino schmoozing Bin Salman or when they highlight Saudi commercial interests in other clubs here.
You can get all the whataboutery. But it still does not feel right. Amanda
Staveley (below) – that successful, influential, independent woman – will have a 10 per cent stake, but the club will belong to a sovereign wealth fund of a country which, according to Human Rights Watch, ‘silences’, ‘imprisons’ or ‘exiles’ independent women. “There was a time when women of a powerful background could say things about women’s rights,” says Rothna Begum, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But under the crown prince, that space has gone.”
Still, at last one powerful woman has helped his investment fund get a Premier League club.
Newcastle United fans, like so many fans up and down the country, are loyal and long-suffering. They deserve a better owner than the one they have had over the past 13 years.
And, albeit in a different way, even if success lies ahead they deserve a better owner than the one they are about to get.
IT is unlikely there is a single professional football club not doing its bit, in one way or the other, for the community during this coronavirus crisis. That is why it will always be unfair to single anyone out.
But Chelsea have been a beacon of social responsibility from the moment Roman Abramovich (right) made the club’s hotel available free of charge to National Health Service staff. Now, they are providing 78,000 free meals for NHS workers and associated charities. And as fellow hacks who regularly cover matches at Stamford Bridge will tell you, those people are in for a well-deserved treat.