Picture that exposes a thousand lies. When will those who love the club object to how Newcastle are being used?
SOMETIMES, a picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, a picture of a new football kit can expose a thousand lies. When an image of Newcastle United’s new away kit (right) was leaked on Friday and showed that it was designed in the same colours as the Saudi Arabia national team, all the falsehoods about the club’s ownership that have been peddled so relentlessly in the North-East and by the Premier League were brought into the light.
Newcastle should be ashamed of asking their players and their fans to wear the green and white of a top that bears a striking resemblance to the national shirt of one of the most repressive, brutal and bellicose regimes in the world. Talk about stupid. Talk about an own goal. Then again, as Greg Norman would say: ‘We’ve all made mistakes.’
In his role as chief executive of a new breakaway tour, LIV Golf Invitational, funded primarily by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Norman has become the chief apologist for the crimes and policies of his Saudi paymasters, brushing off the cold-blooded murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was cut up with a bone saw in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as a minor inconvenience. Even he might struggle to dispel the sense of dismay that greeted the kit reveal.
GLORYING in the riches now at their disposal, many Newcastle supporters have been fiercely loyal to the Saudis since they bought 80 per cent of the club last October and some have waved away their appalling human rights record, their repression of minorities, their penchant for mass executions, their treatment of women and their targeting of civilians in the war in Yemen. But even for the loyalists, this felt like a worrying development.
The Saudification of the away kit is only a symbol, of course, and perhaps some see it as a trifle. But club colours are a powerful symbol and the fact the Saudis have chosen to annex a kit to accelerate their sportswashing project on the Tyne suggests that Newcastle may have sold an awful lot more of their soul than first thought.
The idea they have got their club back after the Saudis bought it from the loathed Mike Ashley is also looking more and more delusional with every day. The truth is they are further and further away from getting their club back. Who knows what part of the club’s history and culture the owners will appropriate next? Newcastle as a vassal state is a sad sight to see.
‘If it is true Newcastle are changing their away kit to match Saudi Arabia’s national colours,’ a spokesperson for Amnesty International said, ‘it exposes the power of the Saudi dollar and the kingdom’s determination to sportswash its brutal, blood-soaked human rights record.
‘Everyone needs to resist being part of Saudi Arabia’s propaganda drive, be aware of what is going on there and speak out about the government’s abuses: the mass executions, Khashoggi’s murder and dire situation for LGBTI+ people. Sport must not be allowed to be used like this.’
The away-kit debacle is also a colossal embarrassment for the Premier League, who fell over themselves to wave through the Saudi purchase of Newcastle on the laughable basis that the PIF, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of Saudi Arabia’s king, was separate from the state.
The prospect of Newcastle playing in what is tantamount to the kit of the Saudi national team does not do an awful lot for the credibility of the Premier League’s position.
There must also be growing concern that just as being an apologist for the Saudis has started to destroy the reputation of Norman, so being on the payroll at Newcastle and playing in Saudi
colours will have more and more of an impact on the club’s ability to recruit the elite talent they need to fulfil the supporters’ expectations of incoming trophies.
Eddie Howe is a fine manager who has done a first-class job since he arrived in the North-East but his attempts to dodge questions about the human rights record of the Saudis will become even more untenable when his team are running out at Old Trafford and Anfield looking like the Saudi national side. Is that really what a man like him and a club like Newcastle want to stand for?
The hopes of many decent Newcastle fans that they could maintain a separation between the owners and the club have been damaged by the revelations about the new kit. How can there be separation now? How can there be any pretence the Saudi state is not using Newcastle for its own ends, loading the club with its crimes, sucking it deep into its orbit?
What is next, I wonder? At what point do people who love Newcastle object to the cynical way the club are being used? A rebrand of St James’ Park as MBS Park? Changing the home kit to green-and-white stripes? How far would the Saudis have to go before their money is no longer worth it?
Newcastle might be rich beyond their wildest dreams but the losses are mounting up.