LISTEN TO THE VICTIMS - PUBLIC MEETING IN NEWCASTLE WITH LINA AL-HATHLOUL

Lina is a leading Saudi Human Rights Activist, now head of monitoring and advocacy for ALQST. Her sister, Loujain, was arrested, brutally tortured, and forcibly disappeared for months. Loujain was sentenced as a terrorist for fighting for women's rights in Saudi Arabia.

With St. James’ Park set to host the Saudi Arabian national team, we are honoured to welcome her to Newcastle to tell her story and speak on behalf of the victims of this brutal regime which owns our club.

A member of the Newcastle branch of Amnesty International talks to us about some of the human rights abuses taking place in Saudi Arabia, Nic McGeehan of FairSquare talks about the political implications of Saudi Arabia's investment in Newcastle, while John and Andrew talk about our group, their support for Newcastle United, and how that has been affected by the Saudi takeover of our club.

Help us to hold more events like this in future.

A PLEA FOR NEWCASTLE UNITED FANS TO HELP GIVE SAUDI WOMEN A VOICE FROM ELISE EVANS

FEATURED ARTICLES

NEW - FANZINE ISSUE 3 - JUNE 2023

Since Hailstones in the Desert No2, NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing have continued to campaign, raising the issue of sportswashing and urging our fellow fans, local MPs, and everyone connected to the club to make good on pre-takeover commitments to ‘hold the Saudi owners to account regarding human rights abuses.’

During the course of our campaigning, we have been approached by fans of other clubs who are worried about the direction football is taking. In discussions we have pointed out that only two Premier League clubs are state owned. It is not inevitable that all our football clubs will be bought up by human rights abusing states, but that will depend on how football fans react.

This edition of Hailstones in the Desert is a big issue with articles by NUFC fans, victims of the Saudi regime and fans who oppose state ownership of our football clubs.

Everyone in our campaign is an NUFC fan. We volunteer for the campaign because we do not want one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships, using our club to sportswash away their many crimes and human rights abuses.

The fanzine is available to download for free. Please share the link to get the word out to more supporters.

In the future we would like to produce a hard copy of the fanzine. If you can, please make a donation to support the fanzine and NUFCFAS’ campaigning work.

 Suggested Donation - £3

EASY CITIES TO BUY

A detailed report by FairSquare on the bigger picture, politically and economically, of the takeovers of two historic English football clubs. How a lack of civic leadership has enabled sportswashing projects in Manchester and Newcastle.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST STATE OWNERSHIP OF FOOTBALL CLUBS

We hosted a Twitter Space on state ownership for fans of all clubs. Listen to the full discussion here:

JOINT STATEMENT FROM NUFC FANS AGAINST SPORTSWASHING AND UNITED AGAINST SPORTSWASHING

While NUFC play MUFC on Sunday, groups of fans from both clubs will be united in a common cause, regardless of the result on the pitch.

We are Newcastle United and Manchester United fans standing together to call for an end to the sale of our historic clubs to states which use them to sportswash their human rights abuses.

When Manchester City was bought by Sheikh Mansour in 2008 he was seen as a rich benefactor, and the fact that he was the brother of the president and deputy prime minister of a country run as a dictatorship was not considered important. We now know that the UAE is one of the most oppressive regimes in the world.

Much more was known about the poor human rights record in Saudi Arabia yet the Premier League and UK government did nothing to prevent their purchase of Newcastle United.

There is now concern over the legitimacy of the purchase after the chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan was described in a US court document as “a sitting minister of the Saudi government”. Richard Masters has said under questioning in a parliamentary committee this week that, "there may or may not be an investigation going on” into the Saudi dictatorship’s ownership of Newcastle United. As football fans, we demand full transparency on this issue. There should be no ‘secret deals’ with repressive regimes, no matter how much money they have promised to invest in the Premier League. It’s time for Richard Masters to come clean and publish what the ‘legal and binding assurances’ given to the Premier League were.

Now we have the threat of a third club, Manchester United, being taken over by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, close family to the president and chairman of the Qatari Islamic Bank. This follows the exposure of Qatari human rights abuses during the World Cup. We know that Qatar has a law No. (25) of 2002 which makes any significant investment subject to direct supervision of the state.

On March 30th, the Premier League agreed to a toughened up Owner’s and Director’s Test which includes disqualification for ‘human rights abuses.’ This is welcome. However, we remain concerned that an individual from a repressive regime can still become an owner if it is not made clear that the approval of a significant investment is dictated by the ruling family in these Gulf states. It is impossible to separate Sheikh Mansour from the UAE authorities and the same is true of Skeikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani and the Qatari authorities.

As football fans, regardless of our club colours we believe dictatorships such as Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Qatar should be disqualified from owning clubs because of their appalling human rights records.

Further, pumping money disproportionately into a small number of clubs distorts the fairness of the game. We are sure the fans of the other 17 other clubs in the Premier League will agree with us.

We invite all football fans to join us in opposing sportswashing and state ownership of our football clubs and to support human rights. Football fans united can force the government and Premier League to act.

Would you like to support us? All funds will go towards the campaign.

 Follow us on Social Media