Saudi’s sportswashing is truly cynical

SAUDI ARABIA’S takeover of Newcastle United is already playing out like the perfect blueprint for a sportswashing project. It is no coincidence that the Saudis, like the Emiratis at Manchester City, chose a club down on their luck, gripped by a historic sense of injustice, desperate for success and eager for the promise of investment into a neglected region.

And now Newcastle are rising up the table, led by a fine manager and fuelled by good signings, the rewards are rolling in for the Saudis. They have cultivated swooning Sky reporters and supine local newspapers, who had to be brought round with smelling salts when some of the owners kicked a ball around the pitch after their victory on Wednesday.

The fans are so grateful to be out of the Mike Ashley era that most don’t care where the money comes from. So already, a regime that murders dissidents, massacres civilians in illegal wars, executes criminals and oppresses minorities, is being held up as a force for good. If the cynicism of the sportswashing weren’t so sad, you could almost admire it.

I CAN’T be the only one getting thoroughly bored with the Chelsea ownership beauty pageant. Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams are sports figures of immense cultural standing, but no amount of PR spin is going to change the fact that Chelsea will soon be owned by one combination or another of American billionaires who will soon grow nervous about that strange thing called relegation and, like Fenway Sports Group, Stan Kroenke and the Glazers before them, try to find a way around it.