[Football] Saudi consortium to take over Newcastle

[The Fifth Column]

I want to go to that game more than any other, to join in any chants insulting their owners / slagging off their human rights record.

I'd like to see a big organised visual and vocal protest and good for you for doing that but I just can't stomach showing up .

 

[Springal]

Newcastle are now the stand out pariahs of the Premier League. The media describing their fans as 'long suffering' and 'no fans deserve it more' is sickening. Shearer et al now weighing in giving legitimacy to this awful regime owning his club, its disgusting. I won't be attending the home match against them under any circumstances, my seat will be empty. It won't mean a thing to anyone or make a difference but I simply can't turn a blind eye and acquiesce any more.

Questions I have are, who exactly are the decision makers at the FA that decide the fit and proper persons test? I'd like their names to be published. How has this decision suddenly been made out of the blue? The weak argument that the Ownership of Newcastle will not be the Saudi leader doesn't fool anyone, its an out and out lie pure and simple.

I'd like to know the finances of the decision makers, I wonder if there are any numbered Swiss bank accounts recently opened with large anonymous deposits.....

Trevor Birch of the EFL once explained what the fit and proper test was (note - it’s not even called that) it is basically only really to ensure they know who is going to be taking over, ensuring they have funds and how they came to get those funds - from memory.

On the flip side it’d be impossible to mandate for every scenario of ‘what’ a fit and proper owner looks like. Especially as the horse has already bolted with Man City, Chelsea etc. The PL are also saying they have legal assurances in place that the 2 organisations are separate in terms of the Saudi crown & the investment fund.

 

[keaton]

That's not quite true. That money was given to a group of football clubs as a collective, not to an individual club. The fact that the top clubs decided to keep it all for themselves and not share it with the larger football family wasn't the fault of the broadcaster. It's a bit like if your employer suddenly decided to pay you a million a year and you decided to spend it all on drugs and prostitutes and not look after your aged parents. It wouldn't be your employer's fault!

I can't believe your folks are still going on about that!

 

[herecomesaregular]

It does pose an interesting question.

If Tony ever decided to sell, what kind of people would he sell too?

Not sure he'd simply sell to highest bidder kind of person.

Being Jewish I think that would probably rule out Middle Eastern Muslim Oil money.

Potentially someone from the Asian region like a Hong Kong or Singapore billionaire.

US always a chance with their super rich sports owners backgrounds.

No doubt he'll be with a us a long time and hopefully one day his kids take over but i'd be relatively confident if he did sell it would be to someone with a bit of a moral backbone about them and not the likes of this mob.

Tony B is a legend (but will always remain behind Dick Knight imo) and he has done wonders for our club of course, and is hugely intelligent, wise and likeable and obviously (and thankfully) a proper fan. He has also imo been a bit of a Robin Hood, making huge wealth and giving back to the community in terms of the club and fans. Forever grateful. But he's still a businessman who made his wealth from the betting industry, not up there in terms of a morally great industry! (and I say that while betting regularly and thoroughly enjoying it). So, I'm not as confident as you, hopeful yes but unless Tony has found Jesus the club may still be sold out in the future to someone we wouldn't be happy with. Like everyone says you have to admire ze Germans and their League and be embarrassed that England still gets so much wrong.

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

'It's always been a bit dodgy, so let's look the other way while the Saudi's buy Newcastle'.

Righto.

Sadly though I think your view will inevitably prevail.

Bit of a leap from me saying football has always sold it's soul to the above.

The UK sold £1.4bn worth of arms and weapons to the Saudis just in the 1/3rd quarter of 2020 alone. However Newcastle is supposed to take a moral stand on taking their money?

Where do you see the FA policing their fit and proper persons rules, around what exactly, a moral judgement on human rights? I don't have the answers, but I tell you what, I get a lot more angry at our arms sales to the regime than I do them owning a football club.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Basically the country that supplied the ideology and personnel for the 9/11 attacks now have their grubby mitts on the Premier League. Sickening doesn't even come close.

I have nothing but utter contempt for the Newcastle fans who have no idea who being a suffering fan is. Being owned by an unpleasant person and watching some dull football in the top two divisions of English football with a spot of European football thrown in for good measure, does not remotely qualify you to preach to the supporters of many clubs that have had to fight to even keep a team to watch.

All the while the Geordies have been moaning their club has not remotely been threatened with going out of existence, and their pitiful attempts to unseat Ashley are an utter embarrassment when compared to the fights put up by ourselves, Charlton, Blackpool and many others. Joke.

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Have there ever been any away fan banners at City games re: their owners or are the PL quick to ‘silence’ such detractors?

Shearer article on the BBC currently that’s headlined: ‘A fantastic day for Newcastle supporters’. The world has gone mad.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Basically the country that supplied the ideology and personnel for the 9/11 attacks now have their grubby mitts on the Premier League. Sickening doesn't even come close.

I have nothing but utter contempt for the Newcastle fans who have no idea who being a suffering fan is. Being owned by an unpleasant person and watching some dull football in the top two divisions of English football with a spot of European football thrown in for good measure, does not remotely qualify you to preach to the supporters of many clubs that have had to fight to even keep a team to watch.

All the while the Geordies have been moaning their club has not remotely been threatened with going out of existence, and their pitiful attempts to unseat Ashley are an utter embarrassment when compared to the fights put up by ourselves, Charlton, Blackpool and many others. Joke.

Completely agree. A very bad day for football, although some of the gags on Twitter have raised a smile - my favourite being Halal the Lads!

 

[gazingdown]

It would be interesting to see what the owners do should they get relegated this season....
They are already in a relegation battle, a new manager in the next week(s) may not solve that.
And normally when buying a load of new players in Jan (if they can actually get who they need) those players need time to bed in..
And I don't buy this "they've actually got a decent squad" nonsense...
Interesting times ahead....

 

[marlowe]

.....So, I'm not as confident as you, hopeful yes but unless Tony has found Jesus the club may still be sold out in the future to someone we wouldn't be happy with.....

Very unlikely given his religeous persuasion

 

[trueblue]

I hesitate to say I'd walk away from the Albion if this happened here as it would be such a wrench. But I wouldn't want that sort of ownership, even if we could have Mbappe and Haaland up front. The club's closeness to the community is key. I think a lot of older fans will look back on this as the week they lost almost everything that made Newcastle special to them.

 

[Insel affe]

Very unlikely given his religeous persuasion

I think Jesus is important in the Jewish faith, so he can still find him, he's just not a high flyer in their circles.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I hesitate to say I'd walk away from the Albion if this happened here as it would be such a wrench. But I wouldn't want that sort of ownership, even if we could have Mbappe and Haaland up front. The club's closeness to the community is key. I think a lot of older fans will look back on this as the week they lost almost everything that made Newcastle special to them.

It is still all over radio 5 and it seems to me that most of the fans are lapping it up. The tiny separation of the ownership from the Saudi state is being presented as a chasm, and even if it is wide enough to let in only a chink of light, this is enough for the grateful supporters to imagine an exciting future has been illuminated.

If the Albion were sold to a satellite of a nation state determined to use the club to sports-wash themselves, with pretty much guaranteed permanent elevation into the top six, trophies incoming, I wonder how we would feel? I suspect I would use it as a convenient excuse to walk away from my season ticket, but I am aware that there is no reason to imagine my reaction would be typical.

 

[highflyer]

Bit of a leap from me saying football has always sold it's soul to the above.

The UK sold £1.4bn worth of arms and weapons to the Saudis just in the 1/3rd quarter of 2020 alone. However Newcastle is supposed to take a moral stand on taking their money?

Where do you see the FA policing their fit and proper persons rules, around what exactly, a moral judgement on human rights? I don't have the answers, but I tell you what, I get a lot more angry at our arms sales to the regime than I do them owning a football club.

You are allowed to be angry at both. I am.

The FA are worthless. Corrupt. Nobody with their snout in the trough is going to do anything that might risk cutting off the supply of swill.

We should look to the German approach and fan's having control. Ultimately that will need intervention of some kind.

But a government that thinks that a 'consultation' on how to improve football that asks nothing about changing rules on ownership and instead distracts us all with questions about where you can drink, and whether you can stand, is not going to help

We knew what we were voting for and we deserve what we've got. And now my only outlet is ranting on a football forum. So that's what I'm doing.

 

[Mike Small]

Boycott the Newcastle game? I must admit it doesn't sit well with me attending and effectively giving them legitimacy.

Minutes applause for Jamal Khashoggi? His picture on the screen? Players wear black arm bands? The last two would never be done by the club obviously. Change their name on the scoreboard to Newcaudi Arabia FC?

This 'long suffering' nonsense is unbearable. Shearer, Clark et al are a disgrace.

I would love the rest of the teams to relegate them. Could happen but won't as someone else will come in and their players are better than their position shows. Not sure why they should try though as they'll be out as soon as the new owners/manager can feasibly do it.

 

[Wozza]

https://twitter.com/MarkWright_/status/1446204851499769865?s=20

[tweet]1446204851499769865[/tweet]

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Yemen flags

We should all buy Yemen flags

https://www.amazon.co.uk/FlagSupers...jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

 

[Stat Brother]

https://twitter.com/MarkWright_/status/1446204851499769865?s=20

[tweet]1446204851499769865[/tweet]

It needs Steve Bruce running out along side them.

 

[Wozza]

It needs Steve Bruce running out along side them.

Huh? At this stage, they're managed by Guardiola, Klopp AND Potter.

 

[Stato]

The way that otherwise decent people can find ways to justify the unjustifiable if it means that their football team is successful is just astounding. The bloke from the Newcastle supporters group who was on Newsnight actually said that they just want a team that they can be proud of for the first time in 14 years.

I've been proud of my football club since I've supported it. We're on a run now, but during most of that time its results have been mediocre to awful. My pride came from the allegiance with fellow supporters who cared about having football to watch in Sussex. It's nice to win, but I'd be here whatever league we were in and I know that most of you would too. I am now most proud that we now have owners who share my football values. Who act like custodians, who know that this about the long term, who value the club's links with the people of Sussex, who want to be leaders in showing how a football club can be at the heart of a community. Now I know that Newcastle fans didn't get that from Mike Ashley, but we didn't get it from Bill Archer either. In those circumstances you define the club as the supporters not the owners. That is not possible if your fellow supporters are complicit in helping force through a sale to owners who shouldn't be passing a fit and proper person test, something that the Newsnight spokeperson didn't acknowledge when he argued that supporters were not responsible because they had no power.

It seems to me that the fan campaign to lobby the FA to allow the take over is the largest fan action undertaken by Newcastle fans throughout Ashley's apparently hated tenure. They complained that they hated him whilst buying his sportswear. They then actively campaigned to be allowed to sell the soul of their own club just for success on the pitch. F*** that. I'd be gone in a second if that was the price of being a Brighton fan. The oft quoted Shankly remark about football being more important than life or death is often misunderstood. Football, sport, art, music, culture are the religions of the irreligious. They provide the moments of transcendent wonder that us non believers can't get from the metaphysical. In those terms they are more important than life itself. However, its all ethereal and the sharing those moments with like minded others is absolutely key to giving meaning to the emotion. The moment you find yourself in a group with whom you cannot accept that you are like minded is the moment its over and all meaning disintegrates. To many of us, football may be more more important than life or death. However, winning at football is certainly not. The moment that you are supporting the success of an organisation that you cannot justify against your own sense of morality is the moment you are doing something completely meaningless.

The joyous reaction of the majority of Newcastle fans to the news that the club that was supposed to represent their community is to become the plaything of amoral billionaires is all about wanting to win and nothing about any of the other multifaceted reasons why millions of working people all over the world have flocked to football grounds for generations. It's so bizarre that it finds this old atheist having to respond with a quote from the bible:

"For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?"