GIDDY WITH GOLD

Printed in the National League South game v Bath City Tuesday 26th October 2021. We won 2-1 in front of 624 crazy, happy people (well apart from the Bath fans).

You got to say that ISIS missed a trick. All that bad press could have easily been avoided if they had just bought themselves a football club. Then people would be in their corner waving their flag with TV pundits crowing that no one cares who the owners are.

Since the launch of the Premier League football fans have become experts at moral somersaults in support of their team. Of course it’s nothing new, but its now reached Olympian off-with-your-head proportions. ‘Your not singing any more’ as Newcastle's new owners decapitate anyone who disagrees, just as one critical journalist found out to his cost. Football is gangster capitalism on speed while getting players to occasionally wear rainbow laces to show they are inclusive. The club even put out a request to fans to not dress as Arabs as people might find that offensive.

Even that bastion of the left the Mail had a pop with Oliver Holt writing ‘The Premier Leagues ‘unabashed worship of money’ is no secret. But it has seldom seemed more flagrant than last week, when English football rolled out the red carpet to let a ‘purveyor of pre-meditated murder, mass executions, state sponsored misogyny and widespread oppression of LGBT rights’ take over Newcastle United.

Fans do care who owns them, granted its usually when things aren’t going to plan, but occasionally you get some saying enough is enough and starting their own clubs like FC United of Manchester that they can be proud to support.

So what really is the problem and how have Newcastle owners made the Chelsea one look like Snow White? The fiancee of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said the Saudi Arabian-backed takeover of Newcastle United is "heartbreaking" for her. Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after being lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.

But its not just one journalist. Saudi Arabi is an absolute monarchy that tortures, jails and disposes of anyone who steps out of line. On the plus side it has oil so its owners are not only untouchable but everyone wants to be their mates. However its takeover of the club was initially stalled not cos of human rights abuses, but because it was pirating premier league games. A little beheading or two, we can forgive but encroach on our property rights. That really is crossing the line.

The Premier League approved the £305 million takeover after receiving ‘legally binding insurances’ that the Saudi state wouldn't control the club. So just who are the new Public Investment Fund (PIF) owners. Well Mohammed bin Salman the crown prince of Saudi Arabi, is the chair, and will provide 80% of the funds. On the board is the state minister, commerce minister, finance minister, tourism minister and investment minister of Saudi Arabia. Clearly no conflict of interest with that motley crew on the board. As one journalist put it “PIF owned the planes used by Khashoggi’s assassins...it's the financial arm of the Saudi dictatorship’s brutality. “There is no division between the PIF and the state."

But why would the Saudi Arabia state want to take over a football club? For their love of the beautiful game or for a bit of sports-washing, where a ‘corrupt or tyrannical regime uses sport to enhance it’s reputation.’ Bin Salman wants to be seen as a reformer and the Saudi Vision 2030 program aims to diversify the country's economy through investment in non-oil sectors including technology and tourism.

The problem is that we have gone so far down the dodgy owners worm hole, its hard for supporters to throw stones in glass houses. The excellent Arseblog article summed it up “one of the most disheartening things about football these days is that the genie is so far out of the bottle this kind of takeover is inevitable. I just think it’s a shame that the people who run the game have allowed this landscape to develop, and that fans who want their teams to be competitive basically have to hope and pray that they are taken over by a billionaire, an oligarch, or a nation state.

“Instead of putting in place some measures which at least try and maintain some measure of financial equanimity they have pandered to the people with money who now ride roughshod over almost every aspect of the game. Broadcasting behemoths call the shots at the expense of fans; rich owners distort the transfer market; players and agents capitalise with lucrative contracts and wages; advertisers and marketers piggyback; gambling firms leech off punters with intense adverting campaigns.

“This isn’t to be critical of Newcastle fans by the way. How can any Arsenal fan take the moral high ground on their takeover when you look at our club?Maybe the Newcastle thing is the straw that broke the camel’s back for some people – although some might argue it’s a case that those at the top don’t want another team to compete with due to their upcoming financial strength – but nobody stopped to notice the camel has been dead for a long, long time.”

As the Financial Times pointed out ‘The game is built on dirty money. Newcastle are ‘only’ following the well-trodden path of the UK government and city advisers. Far from Khashoggi’s murder being ‘a turning point’ in UK relations with Saudi Arabia, our exports (including arms have actually gone up to £6.7 billion, in the past year.’ Maybe we need to remember this, when we hear fans tell us how they have been suffering when their team isn’t setting the world alight. Is football really more important than life and death?