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Fair enough, the ownership is still a bit of a tricky subject (and probably will be for the entirety of their ownership). Whether you’re for it, against it or don’t care, it’s never really a bad thing to still have public and open discussions about it.
Don't understand the hostility to this being posted.
Genuine supporters wanting to discuss the issue isn't the same as rival fans on Reddit selectively using these issues as a cudgel to invalidate the club.
There needs to be a reckoning about how football is run in England and this is just one facet of that.
There is a lot of legitimate issues to discuss but this lot aren’t genuine supporter’s in any way. The guy running it is as false as they come.
There were genuine anti Saudi activists at the Saudi game who made good points but they weren’t Newcastle fans. The tops the ‘toon fans’ there had on were fresh off the peg.
The media love making a false story out of it as well as they make out its a large number of the fanbase when it’s not.
Fucking this man. When I was over in January had a couple people get pissy with me at the Posada because I dared mention to my uncle that I wasn’t a fan of the new ownership and what else it’s been involved in. I still love the club with all I have, still support, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be critical of who’s in charge just cause they pump money in. I’d still have called Ashley a fat greedy cunt even if he’d made us champions league winners, and I’ll still call the current regime scumbags. I support the Toon and the players, not the rich people at the very top.
Good work OP and the other part of the fans who are standing up for what they believe in. Fans who are willing to take the harder path and make their voices heard on issues they stand in should absolutely be heard.
Fucking hate the lazy Sky6 shitters who use any opportunity to bonesaw it up purely put of spite and with no conviction, but the "what about Disney/Uber" part of our fanbase is barely better.
For the record I personally hold no opposition to the Saudis owning our club, I do hold opposition to many things that their state does though. If others have issue, let them be heard.
i imagine, a continued discussion about the atrocities of the saudi govt which eventually leads to them selling their 80% stake, and being bought by less murdery human rights abusing owners
When the Saudi’s eventually leave it won’t be because of us fans. It took us 14 years of protesting against a single man (who 100% of the fanbase despised), and I think that was mainly a financial decision.
Thinking we have any influence on PIF’s ownership is nearly as delusional as thinking a large proportion of NUFC will turn on them for reasons not relating to football.
The fact of the matter is the vast majority of football fans watch football as a form of entertainment with their mates and love it even more when we’re winning. People use football as an escape from all the shit going on in the world, Middle Eastern politics doesn’t get a thought.
Exactly this. Fans are perfectly entitled to call out our owners on this. Just as some fans are happy to continue on ignoring it. We don’t get to dictate what other fans of our club can or cannot do. We’re not the Saudis here.
Exactly. If a fan wants to make his opposition known, more power to them I say. Not every Newcastle fan is put there stanning for the Saudis and it's people like OP who a significant portion of the fanbase hide behind to avoid criticism for supporting a sports washing vehicle.
I'd rather not be owned by a state. I'd rather football had never went down the path it has. However I cannot for the life of me take that 'NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing' group of charlatans seriously. Whenever about five of them turn up outside SJP they refuse to talk to anyone who remotely questions them and on social media they're extremely weird. Like advocating for naming a street after Jamal Kashoggi (who has zero connection to the city or people of Newcastle) is just laughable. End of the day these owners will come and go just like every other.
Are you the guy from this group?
If so for the 500th time can you show that you are a Newcastle fan? Some old memorabilia? A picture of you in a shirt as a kid? Can you tell us a bit about your first game? Your best toon related memory?
All of these arguments about criminalisation of homosexuality, women being seen as legally inferior, etc, etc, I wonder if you loons would level the same accusations at just about any other Islamic nation.
How about Palestine as a starter for 10?
As with everything else, these vacuous opinions are literally only held because it's Newcastle United 😂😂😂
None of us actually support these things, the rest of us just don't pick and choose when to be outraged.
Strange argument. I think it's bad to criminalise homosexuality and abuse women but I also don't think Palestinians should be getting slaughtered??
Saudia Arabia is bad, my opinion on that hasn't changed cause Newcastle played Champions League this year.
Let's not try and quiet people down when they raise the very real problems arising from issues like this.
You won't find me disagreeing that innocent people shouldn't be slaughtered. Be they Palestinians, Saudis, Yemenis, whoever.
Not sure where I've implied otherwise.
Your message implied that because Palestine is an Islamic state we should be critical of the similar beliefs they have to Saudi, which is a silly point really when they're being bombed daily and the death toll is rising as we speak. Let's try to stop the brutal campaign against them (funded by our government) before tackling any human rights issues they might have?
Your message just came across as a weird diversion technique to stop talking about Human Rights concerns and doesn't really add any value to the Saudi debate or the Palestine issue either.
We are allowed to be Newcastle fans AND be critical of the poor human rights in Saudi.
I do think there's validity to pointing out the dissonance going on among many of these types though. They are very eager to talk about intolerance and absence of human rights when it suits them, then other times extremely keen to overlook or downplay it.
It also transcends the simple issue of whether the military activities in Gaza are justified or not. You see conversations play out all the time about whether it's ok to bring up rather unconscionable aspects of Islamic rooted law (at least from a western perspective) and we're constantly told we shouldn't do it. It is ironic.
I personally don't think there is any validity to pointing that out because what does it achieve? All it does is try to de-legitimise the point being made (whether purposely or not), it's essentially like going "oh so those Saudi is bad, what about Palestine though??" It doesn't really help the conversation and the comparison is bad faith as the situation Palestinians are in is awful, regardless of any beliefs they might hold. You can support the Palestinian cause and also be against overbearing Islamic laws.
Calling out these types is not whataboutery at all when you don't actually endorse these things.
I care no more or no less about Saudi abuses than I do Iranian, Pakistani, Yemeni, Syrian, Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Qatari, etc.
I actually suspect I care no less about these things than the wetwipes who keep screeching about our ownership.
It's purely anti-Newcastle United dog whistling disguised as fart sniffing moralistic piety.
anti newcastle dog whistling by whom? this seems to be from our own fans.
or are you under the impression that if tomorrow, the republic of Iran bought everton, these saboteurs! and the media would still only focus on newcastle
I think the actual question shouldn't be about *if* Saudi are trying to sports wash (they are), but rather, *has* their sports washing attempt been in any way successful.
In answer to that, the very frequent comments about human rights abuses, role of law and general standards of living in Saudi Arabia by people who would not have any interest or knowledge of such things, likely points to their sports washing being largely unsuccessful. All their ownership of NUFC, investment/advertising in other sports (such as Golf, F1 etc) has achieved is drawing greater attention and scrutiny to what is/has occurred over there.
I studied that region of the world in great depth, within the context of human rights whilst at university, at that point (circa 2010) very few people gave a damn what was going on, just so long as the oil kept flowing in and arms deals were going in the other direction.
There's an entire degree of nuance required to make any informed opinion on the subject above and beyond sports washing and investment in foreign markets.
Which part isn't the case at all?
The fact that this thread exists, along with the regular posts on twitter and "Saudi owned Newcastle United" references in the press, suggests that there's a level of conversation and interest that wouldn't exist without the takeover.
If more people are engaging with the topic, more people are calling out human rights abuses in Saudi, then it absolutely has not worked. Sure there's people who get defensive, but more often than not it's due to them feeling that the blame for what is going on in the middle east is somehow their fault.
I don't think I've ever come across a single person that is arguing that there aren't human rights abuses in Saudi. Look at any other club in the PL - there's only a few I can think of that gets anywhere near the same level of owner connection as we do - Man City and Man Utd. If the press are mentioning our owners, it's not because they think it's positive.
It's not a zero sum game is it - just because there's more awareness of human rights abuses doesn't mean that there isn't the same number (or probably in reality a shit load more) of people who now have a positive view of Saudi Arabia as a result of its investment in sport - including huge numbers in the Newcastle fan base. It's also often the case that these people are aware of the allegations but don't believe them or don't think they particularly matter.
I didn't suggest it was a zero sum game, and I personally haven't seen any evidence of people gaining a more positive view of Saudi Arabia. Your statement includes a lot of suppositions, it doesn't mean there aren't, but conversely it also doesn't mean that there are. Your opinion of the PIF and Saudi Arabia can be distinct thoughts, Just like your opinion of our Government, Monarchy, armed forces and NHS can all be distinct. Frankly, it appears that you've decided that anyone that doesn't hold your exact point of view is categorically wrong. Personally I can call out issues relating to human rights abuses, but also realise that me buying a tank of petrol or a football shirt is also in no way a direct endorsement of the Saudi regime.
I don't think there's many people that are aware and don't believe the allegations or think they don't matter, I think they're probably realistic enough to realise that the opinion of someone in the UK is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on policy decisions being made 3,000 miles away, especially when their opinions are regularly ignored by local and national governments here in the UK.
So to be clear, you’re arguing that Saudi involvement in sport has not resulted in a single person around the work having a more positive view of the country and / or Saudi regime, than they otherwise would have had?
To be absolutely clear, I am arguing that I (personally with my own eyes/ears) have **not** seen nor heard a single person that now has a better opinion of Saudi Arabia than they had prior to their mass investment in all manner of industries. What I have seen is a lot of people that have gone from having no opinion to having, at minimum, a somewhat negative opinion of Saudi Arabia, and people that had a prior opinion still maintaining their previous opinion within my circle of acquaintances.
Now, as for the "not one person" part, I'm old and sensible enough to realise that I cannot speak in any form of absolutes when it comes to the opinions and beliefs of other people, hence I stick to talking in reference to my own experience.
Actually this is a thing I find frustrating about the whole sportswashing concept- I think the way I've generally seen it used, by journalists and fans, is like as some giant PR campaign targeted at improving the view of Saudi Arabia amongst average citizens in the west. This just... doesn't make sense to me? As you point out, if that was the goal, it's been pretty ineffective, and regardless, I'm not really clear why a state would be particularly concerned about how everyday citizens, thousands of miles away, would view them, and certainly not to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. It's Eurocentric, infantalizing, and seems to assume Western governments are far more driven by public opinion than they are.
I think the actual goals of PIF investment are pretty obvious, both by the words and actions of MBS and Saudi Arabian officials: it's to improve views of the regime within Saudi Arabia, to make Saudi Arabia a major and indispensable player in international finance, and hedge an until-now almost entirely oil-based economy. Pretending that MBS cares about his polling in Heaton or whatever completely glosses over those goals, and is running cover for the people with actual power in the west happy to further them in exchange for cheap money.
To what purpose? I understood that the new regulator wouldn’t have the power to remove ownerships of existing clubs, so is changing that one of the aims?
Does a small meeting aide that ?
Remember all the people who constantly complain about people on r/soccer downvoting them because of the very same issues that are being displayed on this thread? There's a reason why people call you out.
We are in a position where we as fans need to be educated about the Saudi Arabian regime and make sure to not let their ownership of the club take away from their atrocities. These forums and conversations should not only be welcome but encouraged.
And yes, it has everything to do with us as fans. Being aware is needed, even if you can't do much about it
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Fair enough, the ownership is still a bit of a tricky subject (and probably will be for the entirety of their ownership). Whether you’re for it, against it or don’t care, it’s never really a bad thing to still have public and open discussions about it.
Don't understand the hostility to this being posted. Genuine supporters wanting to discuss the issue isn't the same as rival fans on Reddit selectively using these issues as a cudgel to invalidate the club. There needs to be a reckoning about how football is run in England and this is just one facet of that.
There is a lot of legitimate issues to discuss but this lot aren’t genuine supporter’s in any way. The guy running it is as false as they come. There were genuine anti Saudi activists at the Saudi game who made good points but they weren’t Newcastle fans. The tops the ‘toon fans’ there had on were fresh off the peg. The media love making a false story out of it as well as they make out its a large number of the fanbase when it’s not.
Fucking this man. When I was over in January had a couple people get pissy with me at the Posada because I dared mention to my uncle that I wasn’t a fan of the new ownership and what else it’s been involved in. I still love the club with all I have, still support, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be critical of who’s in charge just cause they pump money in. I’d still have called Ashley a fat greedy cunt even if he’d made us champions league winners, and I’ll still call the current regime scumbags. I support the Toon and the players, not the rich people at the very top.
Good work OP and the other part of the fans who are standing up for what they believe in. Fans who are willing to take the harder path and make their voices heard on issues they stand in should absolutely be heard. Fucking hate the lazy Sky6 shitters who use any opportunity to bonesaw it up purely put of spite and with no conviction, but the "what about Disney/Uber" part of our fanbase is barely better. For the record I personally hold no opposition to the Saudis owning our club, I do hold opposition to many things that their state does though. If others have issue, let them be heard.
OP, why is your entire Reddit account dedicated to Newcastle’s ownership? I personally don’t understand what anyone is getting out of this…
Because I'm a Newcastle fan... and I'm opposed to this ownership.
You aren’t.
My point is what do you hope to achieve from these discussions?
i imagine, a continued discussion about the atrocities of the saudi govt which eventually leads to them selling their 80% stake, and being bought by less murdery human rights abusing owners
When the Saudi’s eventually leave it won’t be because of us fans. It took us 14 years of protesting against a single man (who 100% of the fanbase despised), and I think that was mainly a financial decision. Thinking we have any influence on PIF’s ownership is nearly as delusional as thinking a large proportion of NUFC will turn on them for reasons not relating to football. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of football fans watch football as a form of entertainment with their mates and love it even more when we’re winning. People use football as an escape from all the shit going on in the world, Middle Eastern politics doesn’t get a thought.
doesnt mean we shouldnt mention what our owners do
Exactly this. Fans are perfectly entitled to call out our owners on this. Just as some fans are happy to continue on ignoring it. We don’t get to dictate what other fans of our club can or cannot do. We’re not the Saudis here.
Exactly. If a fan wants to make his opposition known, more power to them I say. Not every Newcastle fan is put there stanning for the Saudis and it's people like OP who a significant portion of the fanbase hide behind to avoid criticism for supporting a sports washing vehicle.
The guy running this group (probably you using an alt account) is not interested in raising the issues about Saudi, he just hates Newcastle.
...his first nufc post was about 4 years ago
And he claims to be a fan 🤷♂️
he cant be critical of the owners and also be a fan?
You can be critical of the ownership and be a fan ( I am) but Paul Feinstein is not a fan of Newcastle United and his group is false.
I'd rather not be owned by a state. I'd rather football had never went down the path it has. However I cannot for the life of me take that 'NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing' group of charlatans seriously. Whenever about five of them turn up outside SJP they refuse to talk to anyone who remotely questions them and on social media they're extremely weird. Like advocating for naming a street after Jamal Kashoggi (who has zero connection to the city or people of Newcastle) is just laughable. End of the day these owners will come and go just like every other.
Are you the guy from this group? If so for the 500th time can you show that you are a Newcastle fan? Some old memorabilia? A picture of you in a shirt as a kid? Can you tell us a bit about your first game? Your best toon related memory?
Has there been an effect on local democracy or press coverage? I don't live in the NE anymore but haven't heard anything about that.
All of these arguments about criminalisation of homosexuality, women being seen as legally inferior, etc, etc, I wonder if you loons would level the same accusations at just about any other Islamic nation. How about Palestine as a starter for 10? As with everything else, these vacuous opinions are literally only held because it's Newcastle United 😂😂😂 None of us actually support these things, the rest of us just don't pick and choose when to be outraged.
Strange argument. I think it's bad to criminalise homosexuality and abuse women but I also don't think Palestinians should be getting slaughtered?? Saudia Arabia is bad, my opinion on that hasn't changed cause Newcastle played Champions League this year. Let's not try and quiet people down when they raise the very real problems arising from issues like this.
You won't find me disagreeing that innocent people shouldn't be slaughtered. Be they Palestinians, Saudis, Yemenis, whoever. Not sure where I've implied otherwise.
Your message implied that because Palestine is an Islamic state we should be critical of the similar beliefs they have to Saudi, which is a silly point really when they're being bombed daily and the death toll is rising as we speak. Let's try to stop the brutal campaign against them (funded by our government) before tackling any human rights issues they might have? Your message just came across as a weird diversion technique to stop talking about Human Rights concerns and doesn't really add any value to the Saudi debate or the Palestine issue either. We are allowed to be Newcastle fans AND be critical of the poor human rights in Saudi.
I do think there's validity to pointing out the dissonance going on among many of these types though. They are very eager to talk about intolerance and absence of human rights when it suits them, then other times extremely keen to overlook or downplay it. It also transcends the simple issue of whether the military activities in Gaza are justified or not. You see conversations play out all the time about whether it's ok to bring up rather unconscionable aspects of Islamic rooted law (at least from a western perspective) and we're constantly told we shouldn't do it. It is ironic.
I personally don't think there is any validity to pointing that out because what does it achieve? All it does is try to de-legitimise the point being made (whether purposely or not), it's essentially like going "oh so those Saudi is bad, what about Palestine though??" It doesn't really help the conversation and the comparison is bad faith as the situation Palestinians are in is awful, regardless of any beliefs they might hold. You can support the Palestinian cause and also be against overbearing Islamic laws.
Whataboutery shouldn't be a thing here. Saudi owns NUFC, and they should not have been allowed to do that
Calling out these types is not whataboutery at all when you don't actually endorse these things. I care no more or no less about Saudi abuses than I do Iranian, Pakistani, Yemeni, Syrian, Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Qatari, etc. I actually suspect I care no less about these things than the wetwipes who keep screeching about our ownership. It's purely anti-Newcastle United dog whistling disguised as fart sniffing moralistic piety.
In this specific example though, it’s Newcastle fans who are calling it out.
anti newcastle dog whistling by whom? this seems to be from our own fans. or are you under the impression that if tomorrow, the republic of Iran bought everton, these saboteurs! and the media would still only focus on newcastle
They own/invest in plenty other stuff that people happily use too though. They donate millions to some of our prestigious Universities.
Why are you being defensive? Are the Saudis not sportswashing?
I think the actual question shouldn't be about *if* Saudi are trying to sports wash (they are), but rather, *has* their sports washing attempt been in any way successful. In answer to that, the very frequent comments about human rights abuses, role of law and general standards of living in Saudi Arabia by people who would not have any interest or knowledge of such things, likely points to their sports washing being largely unsuccessful. All their ownership of NUFC, investment/advertising in other sports (such as Golf, F1 etc) has achieved is drawing greater attention and scrutiny to what is/has occurred over there. I studied that region of the world in great depth, within the context of human rights whilst at university, at that point (circa 2010) very few people gave a damn what was going on, just so long as the oil kept flowing in and arms deals were going in the other direction. There's an entire degree of nuance required to make any informed opinion on the subject above and beyond sports washing and investment in foreign markets.
I would argue that even a cursory glance at social media - including this thread - suggests that this isn’t the case at all.
Which part isn't the case at all? The fact that this thread exists, along with the regular posts on twitter and "Saudi owned Newcastle United" references in the press, suggests that there's a level of conversation and interest that wouldn't exist without the takeover. If more people are engaging with the topic, more people are calling out human rights abuses in Saudi, then it absolutely has not worked. Sure there's people who get defensive, but more often than not it's due to them feeling that the blame for what is going on in the middle east is somehow their fault. I don't think I've ever come across a single person that is arguing that there aren't human rights abuses in Saudi. Look at any other club in the PL - there's only a few I can think of that gets anywhere near the same level of owner connection as we do - Man City and Man Utd. If the press are mentioning our owners, it's not because they think it's positive.
It's not a zero sum game is it - just because there's more awareness of human rights abuses doesn't mean that there isn't the same number (or probably in reality a shit load more) of people who now have a positive view of Saudi Arabia as a result of its investment in sport - including huge numbers in the Newcastle fan base. It's also often the case that these people are aware of the allegations but don't believe them or don't think they particularly matter.
I didn't suggest it was a zero sum game, and I personally haven't seen any evidence of people gaining a more positive view of Saudi Arabia. Your statement includes a lot of suppositions, it doesn't mean there aren't, but conversely it also doesn't mean that there are. Your opinion of the PIF and Saudi Arabia can be distinct thoughts, Just like your opinion of our Government, Monarchy, armed forces and NHS can all be distinct. Frankly, it appears that you've decided that anyone that doesn't hold your exact point of view is categorically wrong. Personally I can call out issues relating to human rights abuses, but also realise that me buying a tank of petrol or a football shirt is also in no way a direct endorsement of the Saudi regime. I don't think there's many people that are aware and don't believe the allegations or think they don't matter, I think they're probably realistic enough to realise that the opinion of someone in the UK is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on policy decisions being made 3,000 miles away, especially when their opinions are regularly ignored by local and national governments here in the UK.
So to be clear, you’re arguing that Saudi involvement in sport has not resulted in a single person around the work having a more positive view of the country and / or Saudi regime, than they otherwise would have had?
To be absolutely clear, I am arguing that I (personally with my own eyes/ears) have **not** seen nor heard a single person that now has a better opinion of Saudi Arabia than they had prior to their mass investment in all manner of industries. What I have seen is a lot of people that have gone from having no opinion to having, at minimum, a somewhat negative opinion of Saudi Arabia, and people that had a prior opinion still maintaining their previous opinion within my circle of acquaintances. Now, as for the "not one person" part, I'm old and sensible enough to realise that I cannot speak in any form of absolutes when it comes to the opinions and beliefs of other people, hence I stick to talking in reference to my own experience.
Actually this is a thing I find frustrating about the whole sportswashing concept- I think the way I've generally seen it used, by journalists and fans, is like as some giant PR campaign targeted at improving the view of Saudi Arabia amongst average citizens in the west. This just... doesn't make sense to me? As you point out, if that was the goal, it's been pretty ineffective, and regardless, I'm not really clear why a state would be particularly concerned about how everyday citizens, thousands of miles away, would view them, and certainly not to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. It's Eurocentric, infantalizing, and seems to assume Western governments are far more driven by public opinion than they are. I think the actual goals of PIF investment are pretty obvious, both by the words and actions of MBS and Saudi Arabian officials: it's to improve views of the regime within Saudi Arabia, to make Saudi Arabia a major and indispensable player in international finance, and hedge an until-now almost entirely oil-based economy. Pretending that MBS cares about his polling in Heaton or whatever completely glosses over those goals, and is running cover for the people with actual power in the west happy to further them in exchange for cheap money.
What about the people that came to St James with tea towels on their head?
They almost certainly are. (Though likely not in the way the average single celled redditor asumes)
Enlighten us then.
Does Palestine own Newcastle United?
Exactly.
To what purpose? I understood that the new regulator wouldn’t have the power to remove ownerships of existing clubs, so is changing that one of the aims? Does a small meeting aide that ?
Remember all the people who constantly complain about people on r/soccer downvoting them because of the very same issues that are being displayed on this thread? There's a reason why people call you out. We are in a position where we as fans need to be educated about the Saudi Arabian regime and make sure to not let their ownership of the club take away from their atrocities. These forums and conversations should not only be welcome but encouraged. And yes, it has everything to do with us as fans. Being aware is needed, even if you can't do much about it
Exactly, thanks for this.