Newcastle’s Saudi deal is shocking, not surprising

It is a sad commentary on English football that a top club’s acquisition by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia starts to look routine. Several Premier League clubs have already been snapped up by oligarchs and autocrats. Yet Saudi Arabia’s record is worse than most. Its £305m takeover of Newcastle United should prompt soul-searching over the English game’s ownership model.

The club’s sale to investors led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund has been subject to lobbying at the highest levels. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly urged Boris Johnson, the prime minister, to unblock a delay in the deal’s approval. The government denies intervening but Prince Mohammed’s meddling does nothing to help the case of the consortium, and now of the league, that PIF is distinct from the Saudi state.

League concerns that the club would be run by the state halted the deal 18 months ago, when Newcastle’s former owner, the entrepreneur Mike Ashley, agreed to sell to the consortium. Along with PIF, it includes the billionaire Reuben brothers and the financier Amanda Staveley, who brokered the sale of Manchester City football club to Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour. In 2020, it was thought unlikely Newcastle’s putative buyers would pass a league test barring ownership if acts have been committed overseas considered a criminal offence in the UK.

That was a problem for a regime accused of the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a leading journalist, in the Saudi consulate in Turkey almost exactly three years ago. The US in February released an intelligence report that concluded Prince Mohammed approved the operation.

According to the league, new assurances over control have been made to clear the way for the takeover. But little has changed from the plan 18 months ago: the PIF still leads the consortium; the fund’s governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan, will be the football club’s chair; and the PIF is still chaired by Prince Mohammed, and its board includes six Saudi ministers and an adviser to the royal court.

The only thing that seems to have changed is this week’s resolution of a dispute over whether an Arabic-language pirate network with alleged Saudi support was stealing programmes, including League matches, from a Qatari broadcaster. The dispute was a proxy for a wider embargo of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, since smoothed over. Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, also owns the French club Paris Saint-Germain: rivalry among Gulf rulers extends to football-club ownership.

Newcastle’s “Toon Army” of fans seem unfazed by the Saudi regime’s record and reputation. Their jubilation at the deal shows the loathing felt for Ashley, after what they felt were years of neglect. Promises by rich new owners to invest in the club, languishing in the league’s relegation zone, are beguiling.

The bitter truth is that Newcastle is only following the well trodden path of the UK government and City advisers. The brutal murder of Khashoggi in 2018 should have been a turning point. But the UK continues to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, one of its “most important” trade partners. British business exports to the kingdom were £6.7bn over the past year, more than in 2018. It is probably to the government’s advantage that Saudi Arabia can now launder its reputation with ownership of a football club.

The Premier League too is more concerned with protecting its commercial position than protecting clubs from potentates with deep pockets but suspect histories. In that respect, it differs little from swaths of the UK establishment, which, for the right price, soon forgets its outrage.