What Newcastle's takeover means for the Premier League

The recent Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) takeover of Newcastle has had a somewhat mixed reception – to put it lightly. The reaction has ranged from overwhelming joy (as seen by the numerous Newcastle fans that took to the streets following the breaking news), a heap of memes mentioning the premature signing of Erling Haaland by Newcastle United, and, on a more serious note – how problematic it is that Newcastle are now owned by a Saudi-led conglomerate. This is what most of the news articles surrounding this takeover have concerned. 

 But why are people so upset by this Saudi takeover exactly and should the Premier League have allowed it to happen? As a whole, Saudi Arabia and its harsh form of governance is a rather difficult topic to talk about. They have a very close relationship with the West – particularly the United States, and by extension, the United Kingdom. This has made it very difficult to criticize Saudi Arabia for committing slights upon human rights. 

This inability to publicly speak out against the Saudi government can be seen in the infamous murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. There are multiple cases of this, including the arrest of women’s rights activists, a crackdown on prominent intellectuals as well as the widespread use of the death penalty. Surely this cannot all be pinned on the new owners of Newcastle United though? Ostensibly, while it may appear that one man can’t be blamed for the actions of an entire government, in this case, it actually can. The chair of the PIF – Mohammed bin Salman – has actually been linked to the murder of the aforementioned journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 

However, I personally believe the Premier League were correct to allow the takeover to go ahead. While there is certainly a strong link between the Saudi government (of which Mohammed bin Salman has a large control over) and human rights violations, there is no concrete evidence to prove this, meaning that the Premier League committee would have had to veto the takeover based on hearsay. 

Furthermore, since Manchester City’s owners also have links to the Saudi Arabian government, why was their takeover not vetoed? My personal view on this is that most Premier League owners had an issue with this takeover not because of their morality, but instead their fear that another financial powerhouse was about to enter the league – similar to Manchester City. Their pleas for a Premier League veto were simply made under the guise of morality, rather than any real intention to want to make an example of the Saudi government. Whether readers agree with this is another matter, but I question how much super-rich football club owners really care about the human rights crisis in Saudi Arabia. 

On a lighter note, this takeover has already done wonders for the Newcastle local community as a whole. Just from the scenes outside of St. James’ Park following the news of the takeover, one can see just how much this football club means to the people of Newcastle and how keen they are to witness their team really succeed. The North East of England isn’t the most affluent area in the country and as football originated as a working-class sport, it still to this day means so much to the working class. I think this takeover will give the people of Newcastle a much-deserved break from the economic worries that often afflict the area. From an economic point of view, I’m sure this new takeover will provide new opportunities for employment for local Newcastle residents as the club will undoubtedly grow thanks to this new source of funding from the Saudi PIF. 

It is also important however, to not get ahead of ourselves. Just from scrolling on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok, these platforms are saturated with satirical content over what Newcastle United’s star-studded squad would look like in a few years. As I have already touched upon, the Manchester City Saudi-led takeover was very similar to this new Newcastle takeover. Everyone is expecting overnight success from Newcastle United now but Manchester City were taken over in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour. They didn’t actually win the Premier League title until the 2011/12 season. Similarly, it is going to take Newcastle a while to build a squad that can even compete for the much-desired Top Four spots in the Premier League. So, I have no doubt that Newcastle United will eventually compete for both the Top Four and the title itself, but I think this is going to be a long process, maybe even taking up to a decade for them to catch up to the so-called ‘Big Six’. 

Overall then, I do not want to say that morality has no place in football and that we should ignore the human rights atrocities going on in Saudi Arabia but, in this case, it would be quite hypocritical to allow the takeover of Manchester City and not Newcastle United. While there are of course bad elements to this takeover, good things have come out of it too – mainly for the community in Newcastle itself. Secondly, football fans may finally realize their dreams come true when Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo don the black and white stripes of Newcastle United, together, in front of the Toon Army.