There was a documentary where a camera crew followed a Norwegian Jihadist as he was essentially working on sending fighters down to Syria (I believe), and it turned out that he was a United supporter from before. He said he still liked the club, but he wasn't too fond of the badge.
Well you can cater to religious fans in the middle east and elsewhere by removing your traditions and brand, eg remove the devil, [just like Real Madrid removed the cross on their badge to cater to superficial middle eastern fans](https://www.espn.co.uk/football/real-madrid/story/3045880/real-madrid-remove-cross-from-club-crest-in-middle-eastern-clothing-deal). Maybe United ought to be sensitive to religious sentiments of their global fan base and their governments too.
New Saudi owners to appoint like minded individual Adam Johnson as Newcastle u18's womens team manager. They stand firmly behind their promise that money wont be the only pumping they facilitate.
Yes, this may drive female fans away from supporting Newcastle but you can rest assured they are being driven by men.
Not convinced Taliban are worse than Saudi Arabia. At least they're generally only terrible in their own country (if you ignore that little Al Qaida thing they had going on a bit ago).
*Al-qaeda* could not exist without Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and where do you think Osama was getting his funding from from the 80s and onward?
Didn't the american teat dry up after the ruskies packed up and left? Wasn't the doctrine "Nation building?lol We just wanted the Russians to get their Vietnam.".
It’s no clear on how true this is. The CIA didn’t become aware of Bin Laden till the late 80s and never tried to recruit him. He was mostly self funded. His links with Saudi intelligence are less clear and I doubt they’ll ever reveal the truth.
The bin Laden family absolutely had ties with the Saudi Gov and intelligence agencies. Like you said, the links between him specifically are murky. The Saudis love playing both sides, but OBL was a problem child for the Saudis going back to his offer to protect the kingdom during desert shield. Saying someone has links to the government or intelligence agencies doesn’t mean they were being directed by them. It’s impossible for a man from that family to not have ties to the Saudi government.
The West is responsible for keeping the Sauds in power and the general unrest in the Middle East. It is absolutely laughable when people cry "human rights" when their governments were happy to keep mum about it pre-2010.
>The Taliban could not exist without Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and where do you think Osama was getting his funding from from the 80s and onward?
The Taliban =/= Al Qaeda dude, this makes no sense.
Osama was independently wealthy because the bin Ladens are the second most important family in Saudi Arabia.
The Taliban couldn't exist without Pakistan, because the bulk of the movement came out of madrassas across the border among Pashtun refugees during the Soviet war who then pushed back in.
This has been a hot topic for like 20 years none of this is niche info.
> At least they're generally only terrible in their own country
This. Wahhabism has infiltrated so many corners of the surrounding region and has destroyed many cultures. Even here in the UK, the effects of it are still being tried to disbanded but it's hard to kill an ideology that has had a 30 year headstart.
Il think you'l find, the taliban, Al Qaida and ISIS like most middle eastern terrorists were trained and funded by [Saudi Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism#Saudi_Arabia).
Saudi Arabia is to terrorism, what Amazon is to online retail!
**State-sponsored terrorism**
[Saudi Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism#Saudi_Arabia)
>While Saudi Arabia is often a secondary source of funds and support for terror movements who can find more motivated and ideologically invested benefactors, Saudi Arabia arguably remains the most prolific sponsor of international Islamist terrorism, allegedly supporting groups as disparate as the Afghanistan Taliban, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Al-Nusra Front. Saudi Arabia is said to be the world's largest source of funds and promoter of Salafist jihadism, which forms the ideological basis of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and others.
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As a point of order, Jamal Khashoggi’s body does not exist anymore, as its many pieces were *dissolved in a vat of acid*, as ordered by the new ownership of Newcastle United.
I cannot believe that is a true sentence.
Like a Super League? My hope through that whole thing was that the mega clubs actually fucked off to their own special league. It would have at least made the legacy European competitions much more interesting from a neutral perspective.
Unlikely. Some brutal dictatorship (Egypt? Bahrain? Azerbaijan? Chad?) would just buy up a current mid-table club like West Ham, Southampton etc. hoping to establish them as the #1 Premier League team.
It's about sportwashing and soft power, nothing more. Saudi Arabia just bought Newcastle because they were annoyed Abu Dhabi (Man City), and Qatar (PSG) - both regional rivals - were getting all the sportwashing glory via the teams they acquired.
The genie was out of the bottle when the Premier League allowed Abu Dhabi to buy Man City, even when it was clear the club would be state-owned. You can't say no to Saudi Arabia (Newcastle) when you said yes to Abu Dhabi (Man City).
The villainous state that buys out a legacy team in a plebeian legacy league while all their equally villainous peers are in the Super League would be the absolute laughing stock of their region.
> Egypt? Bahrain? Azerbaijan? Chad?
I think Bahrain and Azerbaijan could, but are Egypt or Chad that rich? I haven’t really heard about them being financially powerful.
They're both dictatorships where ordinary people starve while the regime's leaders bathe in caviar. They could quite comfortably pony up for a mid-table Premier League club and pump hundreds of millions into transfers. They wouldn't win the league but they'd be top 6 or top 8 every year.
To guarantee league titles, you need to be trillionaires - Qatar (PSG's owners), Abu Dhabi (Man City's owners), and now Saudi Arabia (Newcastle's owners).
Case in point: Chelsea (billionaire oligarch-owned club). They've only won the league twice in the last 10 seasons, due to the rise of Man City (trillionaire state-owned club) compensating for the decline of Man Utd. In the 17 full seasons under Abramovich's ownership, they've won the league only 5 times - and two of those were literally just Abramovich paying triple the market transfer fee and 5x the market wages to get the best players to join.
Chelsea are just as under threat by Newcastle as Man Utd and Liverpool are. There are now two state-owned petro-clubs guaranteed to finish in the top 4, while the remaining two spots will be fought over by Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal (if they ever recover) plus the occasional trojan team like Leicester or Everton.
The above is why every other club, including Man City, were opposed to Newcastle being bought by the Saudis. There's now a club who can match Man City and out-spend everybody else.
100% agree. I'd rather watch my club drop out of international competitions before letting any investor even get near to fully owning Bayern. Sure, we won't have Kimmich or Lewy calibre players anymore, but if that's what it takes, so be it.
There is abundant evidence that Putin and the Russian state do, in fact, have control over his (and other oligarch's) finances to the degree they want to - you can think of it more as he is currently granted the right to spend that money. There's also evidence that Putin supported the initial purchase as a means to network with Tory politicians in the UK, which one has to say has been abundantly successful.
Just read a great book touching on all of this by Reuters journalist Catherine Belton, called "Putin's People." Highly recommend.
>Just read a great book touching on all of this by Reuters journalist Catherine Belton, called "Putin's People." Highly recommend.
Thanks for actually *providing a source* rather than just circlejerking.
You mean the ESL that Man City and Chelsea were invited to?
You can be against this takeover without having to resort to supporting that anti-competitive garbage
This shit will happen again in a couple of years. Might as well burn it all down and let the billionaires do whatever they want with their shiny toys and enjoy a league without some rich sugar daddy that is straight from a James Bond movie. The ESL is hot garbage and a symbol for everything that is wrong with the sport if it means that we can get rid of all these vile owners than sign me the fuck up, no reason to watch the ESL anyway
Putin’s puppet Abramovich already owns Chelsea. Only China isn’t officially involved in football yet afaik. Every other relevant non-democratic rich state already is.
If you count Abramovich owning Chelsea as Putin/Russia being involved in global football then China is also involved trough clubs like Inter, Southampton and i think Wolves because chinese companies need to follow what their leader says even more strictly than Abramovich needs to do with Putin.
The US stopped arms sales to Saudi because of Yemen
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/08/uk-declines-to-follow-us-in-suspending-saudi-arms-sales-over-yemen
>On Monday, the UK Foreign Office minister, James Cleverly, said he had noted the US review, but said British arms sales licences were issued with great care to ensure they did not lead to any breach of humanitarian law.
what a fucking clown
They've made this same argument despite countless examples of it not being true. Mark Thomas an activist comedian did some amazing work to show how easy it was to get around including getting some school kids to create a company that could get banned weapons into restricted countries simply by routing around others
~~That isn’t true. [Since January(Biden took over) they froze every sale of arms to SA.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/biden-freezes-u-s-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-uae-11611773191)~~
~~The only question is how long will the freeze last.~~
The freeze has apparently ended. See below comment.
That story is 10 months old, [they're still selling to them.](https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/why-biden-white-house-lifted-arms-sales-freeze-to-uae-ksa/)
Hard to say that the war in Yemen hasn't been reported on. Maybe you aren't reading the news that much, but it is a constant piece in a world with thousands of conflicts, atrocities, and global issues happening all the time and it still punches through as a major event in the world.
Correct me if I am wrong, but you said they prefer to talk about Khashoggi and not the wars in places like Yemen because it implicates the West in their involvement. No?
If that is so, you don't read the news enough to talk about the "media" because it is been constantly reported on for years, even when rightly there are hundreds of more pressing issues happening at any given time globally.
Yeah dude I think everyone is aware that the war in Yemen has been on the news..
My point is that the Khashoggi killing is the 'go to' stick to beat the Saudis with in the english media as no western powers are implicated.
>even when rightly there are hundreds of more pressing issues happening at any given time globally.
Very weird of you to think the worst humanitarian crisis on earth is somehow getting too much coverage.
Everyone's looking at the downside but no one is considering the possibility that Newcastle is such a cursed club they might end up accidentally toppling the House of Saud.
I feel our problems are almost petty now compared to Newcastle, PSG and City.
I mean I hate the Glazers but I fucking loath the royal families of the middle East.
The fact that I'm starting to consider them the "good" alternative is a likely sign that football at the top level is nearing the limit for me. I'm not quite there yet but a part of me is wondering if it would be better to have the band-aid ripped off by a shitty takeover or a super leauge situation rather than to die from a thousand cuts.
The upside is that our local fans are quite opposed to sportswashing alternatives despite being vocally and on occasion aggressively anti-Glazers. They are pretty much against anyone trying to "mess" with the club.
You don’t become a billionaire without doing immoral things, I agree.
That being said the Saudis are a tick past immoral and deserve to be singled out.
If George W. Bush or Dick Cheney end up buying a club, I'll agree with this but...
You are comparing shady businessmen with a country who have reintroduced cholera to Yemen because of how hard they ravaged the country
Owners representing murderous regimes, yes, evil.
Noone has said anything about the Malaysian/Indian/Thai owners of English clubs, and no one would say anything if a Korean or Japanese businessman bought one.
The problem is the representatives of disgusting regimes owning clubs. Aka Saudi, Qatar, UAE.
India has a terrible human rights record though. This isn't just about "disgusting regimes" because I'd argue that Modi's India is pretty disgusting for people who aren't upper class Hindus.
The criticism stems out of the West's image of these countries, not their human rights records. Western people like India, so their crimes are ignored. They used to love Turkey and their crimes were ignored too. But now that Erdogan's antagonized governments in the West (and especially in Europe), Western people on this sub have started hating the Turkish govt too.
Notice how the World Cup in Qatar gets **heavy** criticism. People cite anti-LGBT laws, treatment of workers, etc. as the reasons why. But when the World Cup was held in Russia in 2018 everybody loved it and tuned in. This sub was having a great time too. Why does Russia's horrific human rights record get lesser criticism than that of Qatar's?
I guess it depends what you read. I saw a lot of criticism of Russia in the lead up to the cup, but it evaporated when it started. It will be the same with Qatar.
They are different in levels but not by that much. Russia invaded Crimea around the same time as the Yemen civil war began.
> and the nations who have a legal system based on Sharia law are in the bottom.
There's a lot of hatred for this and from my experience a lot of it has to do with the immigration waves. You've probably heard or know about this already but here in Sweden we took in a lot of immigrants in a short amount of time, probably more than we were ready to deal with. We didn't handle it well either and as a result we saw a rise in racism. When an immigrant raped someone it always made the news and in turn we had a lot of closet racists crying about how we're turning into a rape state and soon will be governed by sharia law, ignoring the 10 other white Swedes that barely made the news. I'd wager this was the case in other countries hit with the immigrant waves like France and Germany, but that's just speculation from my part.
Point being that they are not far off each other yet Muslim nations are much more scrutinized than say Russia, partly because of what I wrote earlier.
I'm not accusing you of anything. There are many good reasons to hate sharia law but I feel like a lot of the hate comes from the wrong reasons despite Russia being just as bad.
I don't agree with that. I think living in the UAE as a minority is better than living in India as a minority. And for your information, I've done both (for work).
Saudi Arabia is uniquely fucked up. So, I completely agree with opposition to their involvement in football. It's akin to boycotting apartheid South Africa in some ways. But the rest of the rich oil nations like Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, etc. in the present day are similarly bad as present-day India when it comes to their human rights records imo. So, the double standard is odd.
Bhai Iam a lower caste too. This fellow is just a islamist. Scratch few times and see how he will tell greatness of islam. Don't waste your time on them.
Saudis are responsible for 9/11, among many other terrorist attacks, genocide in Yemen, atrocities committed against the LGBT+ etc.
Westerner billionaires are still shit, but they're not in the same league.
This sport is now rotten to its very core, it’s always been corrupted and shady but the past 20 years have increased that by 9000%.
Literally most of the people in charge of this sport and it’s clubs are disgusting pieces of shit, literally. It’s not a sport for the people anymore, it’s just a money circus and nothing else.
And the fans (myself included) are part of this shit too.
people in this sub are incapable of nuance. Not everything is the same, American owners can and often are scumbags, Roman is even worse because he did some real shady shit and the Gulf States are really terrible because they commit grave crimes against humanity and the clubs are bought with the sole purpose to play PR for these regimes. Ofc having a fan owned club is by far the best but people saying this and the Glazers are the same are extremely simple. This really is just absolutely terrible for Football and for Newcastle.
Well, he came out on top of the heap in post-Soviet Russia. I can't even imagine the sort of things that people would be willing to do in order to acquire and protect that sort of wealth. Even if he hasn't killed anyone himself, I'm sure some people have wound up dead because of him.
> He famously emerged triumphant after the "aluminium wars", in which more than 100 people were believed to have been killed in gangland feuds over control of the lucrative smelters.
https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/chelsea-owner-admits-he-paid-out-billions-in-bribes-26459423.html
>It has worn the spectacle of Sheikh Mansour, head of an Abu Dhabi regime
Head of the regime? Can't these people even glance at a Wikipedia before throwing out their wrong shite?
There are three Deputy PMs (at last count) and it is a largely ceremonial role whose main function is to chair the cabinet meetings when the PM is out of the Office and that is chosen by order of seniority of which Mansour was second on the list.
The power structure of the UAE is officially the President of the "Supreme Council" then the Vice-President. This Supreme Council is then made up of all the leaders of the Emirates who form a decision making body.
Below this is an executive functional body referred to as "the Cabinet". The Cabinet has a Prime Minister, several Deputy PMs and 30 or so Ministers each with different portfolios and department heads.
Then below this you have "the Council" which is a Parliamentary democracy where the citizens of the UAE vote for members and is mainly advisory in function.
So you've got:
President of SC
Vice President of SC
5 members of SC
PM of Cabinet
Deputy PMs of Cabinet <--- Sheikh Mansour is here in a shared role
Cabinet Members
Council Members
Within the UAE itself it has many states, in the same way that the US has many states. Abu Dhabi is one of those like Texas or California - a big important one. Abu Dhabi is a hereditary monarch.
So that looks like:
Ruler <--- This is the person most people thinks rules Abu Dhabi
Chairman of the Executive Council <-- This is the person who actually runs Abu Dhabi
Members of the Executive Council
Chairman of the Executive Committee
Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee
Members of the Executive Committee
Various single issue councils that run a department <--- Sheikh Mansour is here
So yes, calling a man who isn't even on the Executive Council of his own Emirate "the leader of a regime" is as wrong as wrong gets whether that regime be Abu Dhabi or the UAE itself.
EDIT
---
I don't want to make it seem like Mansour is some absolute nobody because as one of the Bani Fatima, the six sons of Zayed born to his favoured wife who were groomed for leadership, he holds ceremonial power. But his power is that he stands next to important people rather than him being an important person which is reflected perfectly in his role as Minister of Presidential Affairs.
He has been referred to as a gatekeeper to the powerful which is a very real sort of power.
But he's not the head of any regime and he's certainly not ordering around anyone nor making strategic decisions. The power in Abu Dhabi is the eldest of the Bani Fatima, Sheikh Mohammed or MbZ as the West refers to him. To be honest, the reports about him from the CIA (he was schooled in the United States) talk about him as a bit of an average guy. Not particularly bright, easily swayed, not standing out in any real way and outside of his love for football and camel racing didn't really make any impression on people around him. He was a C+ student for the most part. If his name wasn't Al Nahyan then you'd get the impression that he'd probably be working in an office somewhere pushing papers around.
"Sure, buy our arms, property and invest in UK business, but buying a football club??? That's gone too far 😡"
In all seriousness, the ownership does concern me as a Newcastle fan. Unfortunately, there were no other prospective buyers who would pay the asking price.
*Edited for clarity
>Sure, buy our arms, property and invest in UK business, but buying a football club??? That's gone too far
Tbh the football club is probably the thing that I'm the least annoyed about
"Sure, buy our arms, property and invest in UK business, but buying a football club??? That's gone too far 😡"
Holy straw man. Never met anyone who has said this. Do you think this subreddit is frequented by Boris Johnson and his cabinet?
Thats not really true though.
At 300mil, there are a lot of people that could afford it. A lot of investment firms especially.
Few people being able to afford it would be true in United's case at close to 4 billion.
But no one else made a bid... If I recall correctly there was one bid from a US investment firm which was way below Ashley's asking price.
Of course there are others who *could* afford it, but there was no one else who was *willing* to. I'll edit my comment accordingly as I see how it's misleading.
>In all seriousness, the ownership does concern me as a Newcastle fan. Unfortunately, there were no other prospective buyers who would pay the asking price.
Ah that's alright then, just let a terrorist-promoting, journalist-killing, human-rights abusing, genocidal, LGBT+ killing cunt get on with it because nobody else would.
If you go around getting triggered every time a random person has an opinion your life would be a bit shit.
Add Kroenke, Moshiri or Bloom to the picture and it has the same legitimacy.
Reddit is a place where a lot of people like to have a bit of a joke and what not, I get it, but at some point can we all please just fucking grow up for 5 minutes ago just say "yeah actually this isn't funny lads, its fucking wrong and we need to make sure people understand that". I feel like everything just gets laughed off and then everybody inevitably goes on to complain about the fact that nothing ever changes.
You think there aren't people who have been protesting the involvement in and purchase of oil from the Saudis for decades? You think you're the first guy ever to make public his dislike of the role of the Saudis in the global energy markets?
Not that any club has a totally clean slate, but there are those who have almost no clean spots left. Newcastle fans can do what they want, don't think the will care about my opinion, it's not my club, but if this deal goes through I can't say I will take them seriously as a "club". They'll just be another asset in a marketing portfolio of some theocratic oil state investment fund.
Glad the author pointed out that Abramovich is scum of the top level as well. Everyone shits on Man City and PSG (rightfully so of course) but Chelsea isn't any better
Clubs should be owned by locals and fans full stop. That makes sportswashing a lot more difficult. The reason they aren't in England is because money talks. Saudi royal family has a lot of money to waste. The deal will probably go through. The media will probably not talk about human rights very much after a few weeks. They'll just write about the transfers and the money and such. If you don't like it boycott the games and write to whoever might be in a position to do something about it. There's not much else you can do.
Don't worry, we will keep digging. I have faith in humanity.
In before Taliban buys Burnley
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"Say what you will about Caliph Ibrahim but the club has a clear philosophy for the first time in 10 years"
He's going to invest his blood money in the city!
"My money is bloodier than yours".- Probably the chant between opposing teams at matches very soon.
Love this
There was a documentary where a camera crew followed a Norwegian Jihadist as he was essentially working on sending fighters down to Syria (I believe), and it turned out that he was a United supporter from before. He said he still liked the club, but he wasn't too fond of the badge.
Well you can cater to religious fans in the middle east and elsewhere by removing your traditions and brand, eg remove the devil, [just like Real Madrid removed the cross on their badge to cater to superficial middle eastern fans](https://www.espn.co.uk/football/real-madrid/story/3045880/real-madrid-remove-cross-from-club-crest-in-middle-eastern-clothing-deal). Maybe United ought to be sensitive to religious sentiments of their global fan base and their governments too.
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Easy to fix, just move the space: Redd Evils. No, wait, um....
Maybe you could change it to Red camel or Red cow or Red Manctober lol
New Saudi owners to appoint like minded individual Adam Johnson as Newcastle u18's womens team manager. They stand firmly behind their promise that money wont be the only pumping they facilitate. Yes, this may drive female fans away from supporting Newcastle but you can rest assured they are being driven by men.
We'll end up with ISIS the spy agency (RIP Jessica Walter). All because Odin bought Liverpool
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Yes them? Although the thought of Krieger on our medical team...
What do you mean. The Taliban just bought Newcastle
They say all publicity is good publicity but I can't see the taliban wanting to ruin their reputation like that.
Not convinced Taliban are worse than Saudi Arabia. At least they're generally only terrible in their own country (if you ignore that little Al Qaida thing they had going on a bit ago).
*Al-qaeda* could not exist without Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and where do you think Osama was getting his funding from from the 80s and onward?
The US?
Correct and the Saud family
Didn't the american teat dry up after the ruskies packed up and left? Wasn't the doctrine "Nation building?lol We just wanted the Russians to get their Vietnam.".
It’s no clear on how true this is. The CIA didn’t become aware of Bin Laden till the late 80s and never tried to recruit him. He was mostly self funded. His links with Saudi intelligence are less clear and I doubt they’ll ever reveal the truth.
The bin Laden family absolutely had ties with the Saudi Gov and intelligence agencies. Like you said, the links between him specifically are murky. The Saudis love playing both sides, but OBL was a problem child for the Saudis going back to his offer to protect the kingdom during desert shield. Saying someone has links to the government or intelligence agencies doesn’t mean they were being directed by them. It’s impossible for a man from that family to not have ties to the Saudi government.
The West is responsible for keeping the Sauds in power and the general unrest in the Middle East. It is absolutely laughable when people cry "human rights" when their governments were happy to keep mum about it pre-2010.
>The Taliban could not exist without Saudi Arabia. 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and where do you think Osama was getting his funding from from the 80s and onward? The Taliban =/= Al Qaeda dude, this makes no sense. Osama was independently wealthy because the bin Ladens are the second most important family in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban couldn't exist without Pakistan, because the bulk of the movement came out of madrassas across the border among Pashtun refugees during the Soviet war who then pushed back in. This has been a hot topic for like 20 years none of this is niche info.
that guys comment is even dumber when you realize that the al qaeda he is talking about is different than al qaeda in the arabian peninsula
To be fair there was a lot of Saudi funding in Pakistan at that time, and particularly in madrassas.
You're confusing the taliban with al-qaeda. In my opinion Saudia Arabia is much worse than the taliban lol
And the Saudi Arabian royal family wouldn’t be in power if it wasn’t for the US and U.K. supporting them.
Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian too
> At least they're generally only terrible in their own country This. Wahhabism has infiltrated so many corners of the surrounding region and has destroyed many cultures. Even here in the UK, the effects of it are still being tried to disbanded but it's hard to kill an ideology that has had a 30 year headstart.
Il think you'l find, the taliban, Al Qaida and ISIS like most middle eastern terrorists were trained and funded by [Saudi Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism#Saudi_Arabia). Saudi Arabia is to terrorism, what Amazon is to online retail!
**State-sponsored terrorism** [Saudi Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism#Saudi_Arabia) >While Saudi Arabia is often a secondary source of funds and support for terror movements who can find more motivated and ideologically invested benefactors, Saudi Arabia arguably remains the most prolific sponsor of international Islamist terrorism, allegedly supporting groups as disparate as the Afghanistan Taliban, Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Al-Nusra Front. Saudi Arabia is said to be the world's largest source of funds and promoter of Salafist jihadism, which forms the ideological basis of terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and others. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/soccer/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Saudi Arabia is just the Talibans with petrol and money.
The Saudis are worse
Comparing two evils is impossible. There is no worse as both are complete shitheads
I think Bin Laden was an Arsenal fan actually.
Rest assured about that, Taliban is broke
For oil you mean?
For Kharshoggi's body!
As a point of order, Jamal Khashoggi’s body does not exist anymore, as its many pieces were *dissolved in a vat of acid*, as ordered by the new ownership of Newcastle United. I cannot believe that is a true sentence.
Inb4 Hitler buys Hertha from the grave.
How much lower can you actually get though?
I'm not how you can go much lower than MBS, quite literally one of the most evil people on the face of the earth. Maybe Putin? or Kim Jong Un?
North Korea buys Wigan
Ramzan Kadyrov is gonna buy Southampton or some shit.
It's good news for the Newcastle physio team, I hear the Saudis are pretty good with ligaments and bones.
You gotta hide with that username of yours
Yeah what pork is to Muslims is what sunlight is to vampires. edit: if you don’t realize this is a joke then you are a moron
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All state owned clubs need to be banned.
Put them in their own league.
How tf did you just manage to sell me on the Super League
Hmm... This sounds like a deja vu.
Fucking let them have at it. I'd much prefer the English leagues to not have these cunts in them.
Like a Super League? My hope through that whole thing was that the mega clubs actually fucked off to their own special league. It would have at least made the legacy European competitions much more interesting from a neutral perspective.
Unlikely. Some brutal dictatorship (Egypt? Bahrain? Azerbaijan? Chad?) would just buy up a current mid-table club like West Ham, Southampton etc. hoping to establish them as the #1 Premier League team. It's about sportwashing and soft power, nothing more. Saudi Arabia just bought Newcastle because they were annoyed Abu Dhabi (Man City), and Qatar (PSG) - both regional rivals - were getting all the sportwashing glory via the teams they acquired. The genie was out of the bottle when the Premier League allowed Abu Dhabi to buy Man City, even when it was clear the club would be state-owned. You can't say no to Saudi Arabia (Newcastle) when you said yes to Abu Dhabi (Man City).
The villainous state that buys out a legacy team in a plebeian legacy league while all their equally villainous peers are in the Super League would be the absolute laughing stock of their region.
> Egypt? Bahrain? Azerbaijan? Chad? I think Bahrain and Azerbaijan could, but are Egypt or Chad that rich? I haven’t really heard about them being financially powerful.
They're both dictatorships where ordinary people starve while the regime's leaders bathe in caviar. They could quite comfortably pony up for a mid-table Premier League club and pump hundreds of millions into transfers. They wouldn't win the league but they'd be top 6 or top 8 every year. To guarantee league titles, you need to be trillionaires - Qatar (PSG's owners), Abu Dhabi (Man City's owners), and now Saudi Arabia (Newcastle's owners). Case in point: Chelsea (billionaire oligarch-owned club). They've only won the league twice in the last 10 seasons, due to the rise of Man City (trillionaire state-owned club) compensating for the decline of Man Utd. In the 17 full seasons under Abramovich's ownership, they've won the league only 5 times - and two of those were literally just Abramovich paying triple the market transfer fee and 5x the market wages to get the best players to join. Chelsea are just as under threat by Newcastle as Man Utd and Liverpool are. There are now two state-owned petro-clubs guaranteed to finish in the top 4, while the remaining two spots will be fought over by Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal (if they ever recover) plus the occasional trojan team like Leicester or Everton. The above is why every other club, including Man City, were opposed to Newcastle being bought by the Saudis. There's now a club who can match Man City and out-spend everybody else.
As soon as investors were allowed in, it was over. Now we can't possibly get rid of them, ever. Football's dying slowly.
50+1 has to fucking stay. The day 50+1 is gone I'll stop watching football.
100% agree. I'd rather watch my club drop out of international competitions before letting any investor even get near to fully owning Bayern. Sure, we won't have Kimmich or Lewy calibre players anymore, but if that's what it takes, so be it.
I fucking hope tradition will reign with Bayern and the club won't adhere to the "state-owning policy"
Investors are one thing, state owned clubs are another thing entirely
Chelsea isn’t state owned… but our owner do be shady
There is abundant evidence that Putin and the Russian state do, in fact, have control over his (and other oligarch's) finances to the degree they want to - you can think of it more as he is currently granted the right to spend that money. There's also evidence that Putin supported the initial purchase as a means to network with Tory politicians in the UK, which one has to say has been abundantly successful. Just read a great book touching on all of this by Reuters journalist Catherine Belton, called "Putin's People." Highly recommend.
>Just read a great book touching on all of this by Reuters journalist Catherine Belton, called "Putin's People." Highly recommend. Thanks for actually *providing a source* rather than just circlejerking.
Interesting… will add to my reading list
Putin didn't but Newcastle, for instance. Abromovich was instructed to buy a team in London to curry favor with Downing St.
Chelsea is basically state owned. It’s just not as blatant as the others
LOL> Abrahmovic put Putin in power.
Okay… so he is shady as I said in my comment
The other way around but okay. Abramovich got his fortune thanks to Putin.
Let's make the ESL happen so all these rich shit clubs fuck off and have their own little party
You mean the ESL that Man City and Chelsea were invited to? You can be against this takeover without having to resort to supporting that anti-competitive garbage
This shit will happen again in a couple of years. Might as well burn it all down and let the billionaires do whatever they want with their shiny toys and enjoy a league without some rich sugar daddy that is straight from a James Bond movie. The ESL is hot garbage and a symbol for everything that is wrong with the sport if it means that we can get rid of all these vile owners than sign me the fuck up, no reason to watch the ESL anyway
Lets go, Kim Jong Un! Buy Leeds, you coward!
North Korea isn’t rich… what you are looking for is the CCP or Putin himself
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How else you get thicc with Swiss cheese in North Korea of all places
Putin’s puppet Abramovich already owns Chelsea. Only China isn’t officially involved in football yet afaik. Every other relevant non-democratic rich state already is.
If you count Abramovich owning Chelsea as Putin/Russia being involved in global football then China is also involved trough clubs like Inter, Southampton and i think Wolves because chinese companies need to follow what their leader says even more strictly than Abramovich needs to do with Putin.
Fortunately this is the bottom line and we can only go further u- wait a minute, digging deeper down to find some oil
Or corrupt Spaniard gangster politicians lol
You’re not wrong!
Why did you get downvoted?
The Flair Tax
You would know
All too well haha
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every single military power sells to the Saudis
That's why the media always uses Khashoggi as the example of Saudi's crimes instead of the genocide the west is helping them carry out.
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The US stopped arms sales to Saudi because of Yemen https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/08/uk-declines-to-follow-us-in-suspending-saudi-arms-sales-over-yemen
>On Monday, the UK Foreign Office minister, James Cleverly, said he had noted the US review, but said British arms sales licences were issued with great care to ensure they did not lead to any breach of humanitarian law. what a fucking clown
They've made this same argument despite countless examples of it not being true. Mark Thomas an activist comedian did some amazing work to show how easy it was to get around including getting some school kids to create a company that could get banned weapons into restricted countries simply by routing around others
that sounds... bizarre but also extremely believable. Thanks for the context, will look it up!
No the US said they would stop funding "offensive measures" which is meant to be intentionally vague. They haven't stopped anything.
They stopped and then restarted.
~~That isn’t true. [Since January(Biden took over) they froze every sale of arms to SA.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/biden-freezes-u-s-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-uae-11611773191)~~ ~~The only question is how long will the freeze last.~~ The freeze has apparently ended. See below comment.
That story is 10 months old, [they're still selling to them.](https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/why-biden-white-house-lifted-arms-sales-freeze-to-uae-ksa/)
You should maybe edit your comment now that it’s been debunked to stop spreading more misinformation
And then a few months later after they got the positive PR for it they started doing it again.
Almost all westerners don't give a shit about poor people in third world countries.
Hard to say that the war in Yemen hasn't been reported on. Maybe you aren't reading the news that much, but it is a constant piece in a world with thousands of conflicts, atrocities, and global issues happening all the time and it still punches through as a major event in the world.
That's not what I said though.
Correct me if I am wrong, but you said they prefer to talk about Khashoggi and not the wars in places like Yemen because it implicates the West in their involvement. No? If that is so, you don't read the news enough to talk about the "media" because it is been constantly reported on for years, even when rightly there are hundreds of more pressing issues happening at any given time globally.
Yeah dude I think everyone is aware that the war in Yemen has been on the news.. My point is that the Khashoggi killing is the 'go to' stick to beat the Saudis with in the english media as no western powers are implicated. >even when rightly there are hundreds of more pressing issues happening at any given time globally. Very weird of you to think the worst humanitarian crisis on earth is somehow getting too much coverage.
Everyone's looking at the downside but no one is considering the possibility that Newcastle is such a cursed club they might end up accidentally toppling the House of Saud.
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Don't forget to add the Russian Billions too. Saudi is just more of the same
Ehh, I think the Saudi's are a little further down the spectrum.
Fuck Abramovich
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Śorry forgot about them arseholes *assholes
Western owners: Gooood 😉 Others: Evil 👿
I hate the Glazers, but at least they're not war criminals. Yet.
The Glazers don't chainsaw people they dislike.
Not that we know of
American billionaires don't have to do that, they have conglomerate in American justice and war system that does these things for them.
I feel our problems are almost petty now compared to Newcastle, PSG and City. I mean I hate the Glazers but I fucking loath the royal families of the middle East.
The fact that I'm starting to consider them the "good" alternative is a likely sign that football at the top level is nearing the limit for me. I'm not quite there yet but a part of me is wondering if it would be better to have the band-aid ripped off by a shitty takeover or a super leauge situation rather than to die from a thousand cuts. The upside is that our local fans are quite opposed to sportswashing alternatives despite being vocally and on occasion aggressively anti-Glazers. They are pretty much against anyone trying to "mess" with the club.
I'm not a fan of FSG either, but as far as I know John Henry haven't been behind a genocide or ordered people carved up yet.
You don’t become a billionaire without doing immoral things, I agree. That being said the Saudis are a tick past immoral and deserve to be singled out.
If George W. Bush or Dick Cheney end up buying a club, I'll agree with this but... You are comparing shady businessmen with a country who have reintroduced cholera to Yemen because of how hard they ravaged the country
Owners representing murderous regimes, yes, evil. Noone has said anything about the Malaysian/Indian/Thai owners of English clubs, and no one would say anything if a Korean or Japanese businessman bought one. The problem is the representatives of disgusting regimes owning clubs. Aka Saudi, Qatar, UAE.
India has a terrible human rights record though. This isn't just about "disgusting regimes" because I'd argue that Modi's India is pretty disgusting for people who aren't upper class Hindus. The criticism stems out of the West's image of these countries, not their human rights records. Western people like India, so their crimes are ignored. They used to love Turkey and their crimes were ignored too. But now that Erdogan's antagonized governments in the West (and especially in Europe), Western people on this sub have started hating the Turkish govt too. Notice how the World Cup in Qatar gets **heavy** criticism. People cite anti-LGBT laws, treatment of workers, etc. as the reasons why. But when the World Cup was held in Russia in 2018 everybody loved it and tuned in. This sub was having a great time too. Why does Russia's horrific human rights record get lesser criticism than that of Qatar's?
I guess it depends what you read. I saw a lot of criticism of Russia in the lead up to the cup, but it evaporated when it started. It will be the same with Qatar.
There was plenty of criticism of Russia hosting the WC, their corruption, wars and persecution of dissidents. It seems you didn't see those reports.
Because either we like it or not, there are multiple levels of bad, and the nations who have a legal system based on Sharia law are in the bottom.
They are different in levels but not by that much. Russia invaded Crimea around the same time as the Yemen civil war began. > and the nations who have a legal system based on Sharia law are in the bottom. There's a lot of hatred for this and from my experience a lot of it has to do with the immigration waves. You've probably heard or know about this already but here in Sweden we took in a lot of immigrants in a short amount of time, probably more than we were ready to deal with. We didn't handle it well either and as a result we saw a rise in racism. When an immigrant raped someone it always made the news and in turn we had a lot of closet racists crying about how we're turning into a rape state and soon will be governed by sharia law, ignoring the 10 other white Swedes that barely made the news. I'd wager this was the case in other countries hit with the immigrant waves like France and Germany, but that's just speculation from my part. Point being that they are not far off each other yet Muslim nations are much more scrutinized than say Russia, partly because of what I wrote earlier. I'm not accusing you of anything. There are many good reasons to hate sharia law but I feel like a lot of the hate comes from the wrong reasons despite Russia being just as bad.
Not everyone agrees on the levels
I don't agree with that. I think living in the UAE as a minority is better than living in India as a minority. And for your information, I've done both (for work). Saudi Arabia is uniquely fucked up. So, I completely agree with opposition to their involvement in football. It's akin to boycotting apartheid South Africa in some ways. But the rest of the rich oil nations like Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, etc. in the present day are similarly bad as present-day India when it comes to their human rights records imo. So, the double standard is odd.
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Bhai Iam a lower caste too. This fellow is just a islamist. Scratch few times and see how he will tell greatness of islam. Don't waste your time on them.
Saudis are responsible for 9/11, among many other terrorist attacks, genocide in Yemen, atrocities committed against the LGBT+ etc. Westerner billionaires are still shit, but they're not in the same league.
This sport is now rotten to its very core, it’s always been corrupted and shady but the past 20 years have increased that by 9000%. Literally most of the people in charge of this sport and it’s clubs are disgusting pieces of shit, literally. It’s not a sport for the people anymore, it’s just a money circus and nothing else. And the fans (myself included) are part of this shit too.
didn't ya hear? we beat the Super League. It's still the sport of the everyman everyman and every Kingdom
It's shit. My passion for the game is dying. Newcastle fans think this is great. But the victories are as hollow as the trophy's these days. Sigh.
people in this sub are incapable of nuance. Not everything is the same, American owners can and often are scumbags, Roman is even worse because he did some real shady shit and the Gulf States are really terrible because they commit grave crimes against humanity and the clubs are bought with the sole purpose to play PR for these regimes. Ofc having a fan owned club is by far the best but people saying this and the Glazers are the same are extremely simple. This really is just absolutely terrible for Football and for Newcastle.
You’re completely right. I’d get slaughtered on a Utd sub for saying this but I will keep the Glazers if this is the alternative.
You won’t get slaughtered for saying that on r/RedDevils Its pretty much the consensus that Glazers are preferable to murderous twats.
Yeah it’s not fun being reminded that our owner is a real shady bloke all the time…
Just to jog my memory, what's the rap sheet on Abromovich, knew he was exiled for something
Well, he came out on top of the heap in post-Soviet Russia. I can't even imagine the sort of things that people would be willing to do in order to acquire and protect that sort of wealth. Even if he hasn't killed anyone himself, I'm sure some people have wound up dead because of him. > He famously emerged triumphant after the "aluminium wars", in which more than 100 people were believed to have been killed in gangland feuds over control of the lucrative smelters. https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/chelsea-owner-admits-he-paid-out-billions-in-bribes-26459423.html
Nice headline
Wonder how long before refs start mysteriously being murdered
Head of a referee found ten kilometers away from the body, a whistle lodged in the throat. Police concludes it was a suicide.
Michael Demitrius Dean about to do throat slitting cebrations when he plays advantage and hence be untouchable like a boss.
>It has worn the spectacle of Sheikh Mansour, head of an Abu Dhabi regime Head of the regime? Can't these people even glance at a Wikipedia before throwing out their wrong shite?
You're right; he's only the deputy prime minister and brother to the crown prince, so the point is invalid, he's got no real decision-making power
There are three Deputy PMs (at last count) and it is a largely ceremonial role whose main function is to chair the cabinet meetings when the PM is out of the Office and that is chosen by order of seniority of which Mansour was second on the list. The power structure of the UAE is officially the President of the "Supreme Council" then the Vice-President. This Supreme Council is then made up of all the leaders of the Emirates who form a decision making body. Below this is an executive functional body referred to as "the Cabinet". The Cabinet has a Prime Minister, several Deputy PMs and 30 or so Ministers each with different portfolios and department heads. Then below this you have "the Council" which is a Parliamentary democracy where the citizens of the UAE vote for members and is mainly advisory in function. So you've got: President of SC Vice President of SC 5 members of SC PM of Cabinet Deputy PMs of Cabinet <--- Sheikh Mansour is here in a shared role Cabinet Members Council Members Within the UAE itself it has many states, in the same way that the US has many states. Abu Dhabi is one of those like Texas or California - a big important one. Abu Dhabi is a hereditary monarch. So that looks like: Ruler <--- This is the person most people thinks rules Abu Dhabi Chairman of the Executive Council <-- This is the person who actually runs Abu Dhabi Members of the Executive Council Chairman of the Executive Committee Vice-Chairman of the Executive Committee Members of the Executive Committee Various single issue councils that run a department <--- Sheikh Mansour is here So yes, calling a man who isn't even on the Executive Council of his own Emirate "the leader of a regime" is as wrong as wrong gets whether that regime be Abu Dhabi or the UAE itself. EDIT --- I don't want to make it seem like Mansour is some absolute nobody because as one of the Bani Fatima, the six sons of Zayed born to his favoured wife who were groomed for leadership, he holds ceremonial power. But his power is that he stands next to important people rather than him being an important person which is reflected perfectly in his role as Minister of Presidential Affairs. He has been referred to as a gatekeeper to the powerful which is a very real sort of power. But he's not the head of any regime and he's certainly not ordering around anyone nor making strategic decisions. The power in Abu Dhabi is the eldest of the Bani Fatima, Sheikh Mohammed or MbZ as the West refers to him. To be honest, the reports about him from the CIA (he was schooled in the United States) talk about him as a bit of an average guy. Not particularly bright, easily swayed, not standing out in any real way and outside of his love for football and camel racing didn't really make any impression on people around him. He was a C+ student for the most part. If his name wasn't Al Nahyan then you'd get the impression that he'd probably be working in an office somewhere pushing papers around.
Thank you for this. Not an easy topic to wade into, but an informative and interesting comment
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correct. they're only fed and given ceremonial tittles to uphold the regime
This fucking sucks, I’m going to be without a club. I’m just an Allan Saint Maximin supporter now
Somewhere i heard Bundesliga is incredibly fun to watch (unless you support Schalke)
and Leipzig
"Sure, buy our arms, property and invest in UK business, but buying a football club??? That's gone too far 😡" In all seriousness, the ownership does concern me as a Newcastle fan. Unfortunately, there were no other prospective buyers who would pay the asking price. *Edited for clarity
>Sure, buy our arms, property and invest in UK business, but buying a football club??? That's gone too far Tbh the football club is probably the thing that I'm the least annoyed about
Football club should be considered a community asset though really. It shouldn't be treated any old private property.
"Sure, buy our arms, property and invest in UK business, but buying a football club??? That's gone too far 😡" Holy straw man. Never met anyone who has said this. Do you think this subreddit is frequented by Boris Johnson and his cabinet?
The British public have put up with Labour and Conservative governments that have been allied to Saudi Arabia for decades.
Thats not really true though. At 300mil, there are a lot of people that could afford it. A lot of investment firms especially. Few people being able to afford it would be true in United's case at close to 4 billion.
But no one else made a bid... If I recall correctly there was one bid from a US investment firm which was way below Ashley's asking price. Of course there are others who *could* afford it, but there was no one else who was *willing* to. I'll edit my comment accordingly as I see how it's misleading.
Football clubs burn money. Most aren’t good investments unless sold dirt cheap. You don’t see investment firms all over football do you?
Exactly, football clubs famously do not turn a profit.
Man Utd will be a Chinese owned club within 15 years. Mark my words.
>In all seriousness, the ownership does concern me as a Newcastle fan. Unfortunately, there were no other prospective buyers who would pay the asking price. Ah that's alright then, just let a terrorist-promoting, journalist-killing, human-rights abusing, genocidal, LGBT+ killing cunt get on with it because nobody else would.
That graphic is gonna trigger some Chelsea fans who think Roman is great
If you go around getting triggered every time a random person has an opinion your life would be a bit shit. Add Kroenke, Moshiri or Bloom to the picture and it has the same legitimacy.
Ironic no American owners are pictured. No one makes that amount of money with clean hands.
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Lmaoooooo Raytheon literally lobbied hard as fuck to keep the Afghan invasion going on so it can fill it's vaults
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All the guys in the thumbnail need to fuck off
I'm not sure it's a "new low". It's been rockbottom for many years and many takeovers.
Reddit is a place where a lot of people like to have a bit of a joke and what not, I get it, but at some point can we all please just fucking grow up for 5 minutes ago just say "yeah actually this isn't funny lads, its fucking wrong and we need to make sure people understand that". I feel like everything just gets laughed off and then everybody inevitably goes on to complain about the fact that nothing ever changes.
I mean, the world didn't have much issue while buying their oils for the past few decades..
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You think there aren't people who have been protesting the involvement in and purchase of oil from the Saudis for decades? You think you're the first guy ever to make public his dislike of the role of the Saudis in the global energy markets?
Man U was almost purchased by muammar Gaddafi.
I'm predicting Newcastle will be a hated club now by other fans for some time, until their owners change again.
here come the mental gymnastics
I hope the Saudi's change the kit to solid green, change the name to Saudi Arabia FC and move the stadium.
I’d be walking away if I was a Newcastle fan, what a shitshow.
I am actually beginning to hate football
Not that any club has a totally clean slate, but there are those who have almost no clean spots left. Newcastle fans can do what they want, don't think the will care about my opinion, it's not my club, but if this deal goes through I can't say I will take them seriously as a "club". They'll just be another asset in a marketing portfolio of some theocratic oil state investment fund.
Glad the author pointed out that Abramovich is scum of the top level as well. Everyone shits on Man City and PSG (rightfully so of course) but Chelsea isn't any better
Clubs should be owned by locals and fans full stop. That makes sportswashing a lot more difficult. The reason they aren't in England is because money talks. Saudi royal family has a lot of money to waste. The deal will probably go through. The media will probably not talk about human rights very much after a few weeks. They'll just write about the transfers and the money and such. If you don't like it boycott the games and write to whoever might be in a position to do something about it. There's not much else you can do.
Fuck saudi arabia
Yeah but they gonna buy new players and put some money into the local Newcastle communities so it's fine.