JALAL LABBAD EXECUTED BY OWNERS OF NEWCASTLE UNITED

NUFC Fans Against Sportwashing sadly announces the execution of Jalal Labbad by the owners of Newcastle United Football Club. Jalal was executed aged 30 for ‘crimes’ committed when he was a child. The ‘crime’ was attending a demonstration in support of the Arab Spring movement for democracy. 

According to human rights organisations “Jalal Labbad was denied access to legal representation during his pre-trial detention and told the court that he had been tortured, beaten up and electrocuted to “confess” his guilt. The court did not investigate the claims of torture and other ill-treatment. This shameful list of violations renders his execution arbitrary under international law.”

Amnesty International said: “Saudi authorities must release Jalal Labbad’s body to his family without undue delay so that they may conduct a dignified burial and mourn him in accordance with their cultural and religious practices. Saudi authorities have withheld the bodies of individuals they have executed, causing immense agony and further trauma to their families.”

Jalal Labbad, born on 3 April 1995, was arrested in connection with his participation in protests in 2011 and 2012 against the treatment of Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a minority in Al-Qatif, as well as his attendance at funerals of individuals killed by security forces. On 1 August 2022, the Specialized Criminal Court convicted and sentenced him to death for alleged offences committed when he was 16 and 17 years old. An appeals court upheld Labbad’s sentence on 4 October 2022. In October 2023, Amnesty International received credible information that Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in secret.

Jalal Labbad’s brother, Fadel Labbad, was executed in 2019. A third brother, Mohammad Labbad, was sentenced to death in October 2022. Following a retrial, he was sentenced to death again in February 2025.

NUFCFAS held our first protest outside of St James’ Park in support of Saudi minors on death row in October 2022. We highlighted these young men facing execution, Jalal being one of them.

Since then we have consistently appealed to NUFC fan groups like Wor Flags and NUST, North East politicians such as Chi Onwurah and Karen Kilgour, the leader of Newcastle City Council, and Alan Shearer and the Evening Chronicle to show some solidarity with Jalal and other Saudis unjustly imprisoned and in danger of beheading by the regime which owns our club.

All have ignored our appeals and broken their pre-takeover promises to ‘keep talking about human rights.’ NUFC recently issued a statement regarding the Isak transfer saga in which they stated they want to ‘retain our family feel’. It is quite absurd, given that our club Chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan is the right hand man of Saudi dictator, Mohammed bin Salman, who presides over a regime which jails, abuses and tortures young women for posting in favour of their rights and executes young men for attending demonstrations when they were teenagers.

The journalist Henry Winter, covering the Alexander Isak situation, referred to the Newcastle United hierarchy as “proud, tough owners who don't like losing - or losing face” - words which we hope Henry now regrets. However, the comment sums up the football press’ detachment from the actual situation at the club and the damage Saudi state ownership is doing to the reputation of the city. Thousands of words and columns on Isak yet no space to mention that the Saudi regime has just executed a young man for attending a demonstration when he was a child. This kind of journalism is unfortunately contributing to the normalisation of sportswashing. 

Chris Waugh, the NUFC correspondent for the Athletic covered the same theme and wondered what the Wor Flags display will be on Monday in the match against Liverpool: “the general tone of their display on Monday will be a celebration of togetherness and an affirmation that a united Newcastle is a strong Newcastle.” Incredibly, Yasir al-Rumayyan has actually appeared in a Wor Flags display. It is surely time for the victims of the owners of our club such as Jalal Labbad to be honoured in a display.

NUFCFAS calls on football fans of both Newcastle and Liverpool, during the match on Monday to post this photo of Jalal Labbad on social media in his memory and to remember other young people executed by the owners of our club. We also call on Newcastle City Council, Tyneside MPs and official fan groups to contact the Newcastle United Chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan to make it clear we in Newcastle oppose the execution of minors and that all pending executions be stopped.

It’s also important that the wider football world demands that the Premier League looks again at its due diligence policies. It cannot be good for the game that a state which executes its citizens for ‘crimes’ committed when they were children is allowed to own an historic football club. 

Politicians on Tyneside and NUFC fan groups often claim there is little they can do to influence the policies of the Saudi state owners of Newcastle United. This is not true. We have been told repeatedly from human rights groups that a clear, united statement that in Newcastle we oppose executions of child offenders would have a massive effect.

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