WHO AND WHAT ARE WE WINNING FOR EXACTLY?

Written by A Newcastle United Season Ticket Holder

The final whistle sounded and we’d done it! History made, a first trophy since 1969. Bobby Moncur was no longer the last trophy winning Newcastle United captain. We’d won a trophy in my lifetime. My father was barely 1 when we last won a domestic pot. It felt good. Did it feel as I expected it would? Not really, I had no idea HOW it was meant to feel after all. Maybe it was age, maybe it was perspective on life, maybe it was the fact that for me and for others I know there is an elephant in the room: who and what were we winning for exactly?

Friends cried, I was emotional, I found a friend whom I have known for over thirty years and grabbed him as the Wembley scenes unfolded. We did it! We’ve “put the miles in” as a friend likes to say, watching Newcastle United home and away, across continents, and to many less illustrious places on a repeated basis: the Abbey Stadium, Manor Ground, Roots Hall, Blundell Park. A friend in the pub afterwards said, after an outpouring of joy, “I can give it up now”, he wasn’t the only one to express that sentiment. “They have taken up enough of my life, more than I have allowed anything else”. I hear you. 

What all of my friends and I share is a nagging doubt despite our happiness. We know the club and city are being used. They are being used by a dictatorship to launder its reputation, every success on the field is a validation of not only their ownership but their rule in Saudi Arabia and global reach through oil. A state that perpetrates heinous human rights violations, has increased oil production despite claiming they are on a path to sustainability and change, benefits directly from the passion and enthusiasm we show for their sporting projects. It’s a cold, hard, cynical truth that cannot be ignored, not by me.

The takeover by Saudi Arabia (let’s not pretend it was any other entity but the State, no one seriously believes that) was something I was against from its mooted inception. Mike Ashley may be a billionaire of ill repute, but he hasn’t, as far as I am aware, ever cut anyone’s head off or seen children executed in large numbers. Whatever dubious, or worse, acts he may be accused of, Mike Ashley is a British citizen and businessman and as such has to abide by whatever laws the UK government imposes. If they choose not to control avaricious businessmen that’s frankly on all of us and the electoral choices we collectively make. Mohammed bin Salman is so wealthy and all-powerful as Saudi’s de facto ruler that no such rules apply, as we saw in the case of Jamal Khashoggi. The problem was in football, we can’t pick who owns our clubs. The finances involved are beyond astronomical, affordable only to hedge funds and oligarchs. We can though control how we react and who we are and portray ourselves as.

People have said to me, those overwhelmingly supportive of the Saudi ownership, “boycott then”. Supporters of other sides critical of the Saudi ownership, using human rights more as a stick than through any genuine concern or principle sadly, have said I have been “sports washed” by attending games and maintaining a season ticket. I don’t think either are valid. You can’t boycott an oil state, the wealthiest people on earth, and expect to have any impact. While I hugely respect people who will not attend because of their moral stance, I do think that the only people losing anything is them, that is the only outcome of selfless sacrifice over sport. The season ticket money will not be missed, there are legions of NUFC fans, many absent in preceding seasons, who will fill seats. As someone who was on a long-term price freeze, my belligerence was part of the reason why I wasn’t giving up my ticket to someone waving a Saudi flag, either metaphorically or literally in some cases, paying more than I was to fawningly approve. Add to that the number of people I know who gave up a season ticket during the Mike Ashley era, thinking they were making a sacrifice to benefit NUFC, when the only losers were them, now virtually excluded from a club they helped sustain. Billionaires can’t be controlled by people, only by governments and only if there is willing.

As for being “sports washed”, my beliefs and values haven’t changed. If anything they are reinforced. Watching Yasir Al-Rumayyan stride out onto the Wembley turf and take plaudits from Newcastle supporters utterly disgusted me, knowing who and what this man represents. It seems a very modern day thing to praise owners as if they were themselves star players. Reviling Gordon McKeag et al for underachievement was always a thing, but the worship of wealthy owners like Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour is a novel and new phenomenon. The moral calibre of these people and what they represent is never questioned, it’s only the wealth and related success they bring that seems to matter. Not for me. I am a Newcastle United supporter, it’s my city, it’s my club more than anyone who owns it, and I don’t uncritically support every aspect of it. They are using our club, they aren’t giving us anything. Applauding the representative of MBS is just not necessary, it’s debasing the very club and place you profess to love. Social media (never a good barometer of anything) seems to suggest that you must be all in or you’re not a true fan. However I know that my critical view of the Saudi State is shared by many, many people who still watch the team, just not necessarily those with the loudest voices.

This brings me to the most disappointing part of this entire saga, the virtual absence of uncritical voices. The Labour Party should be shamefaced on Tyneside and in Newcastle especially. The absolute lack of criticism of Saudi Arabia vocally from leaders is a disgrace. Where they once were vocal about Mike Ashley, they sit silently as human rights abusers launder their reputation on the backs of the city. Presumably they are terrified of the electoral consequences, especially as their party flails in government and Keir Starmer sucks up to MBS, both locally and nationally hopeful of scraps off the Saudi table for “growth and investment”. Every potential “investment” touted as hugely beneficial for the region but no one explaining how this will dig children out of poverty in the city, poverty they have been further condemned to by this Labour government. No big stadium developments evidentially change anything for the vast majority of city inhabitants. Globally, the developers benefit, maybe a few wealthy people, but sustainability and grass roots investment are a fallacy up to now.

The fans groups who campaigned against Mike Ashley, particularly the Supporters’ Trust and True Faith fanzine have lost their voices. From “Sports Direct Shame” rhetoric, criticism of zero hours contracts, protests outside shops, getting MPs like Chi Onwura and Guardian journalists onboard, the same people have now decided “wa rich”. Ashley is gone and so are any quasi socialist principles they once presented. We need “investment” apparently, even though as yet no one knows what this looks like, who will benefit, or how the people most in need will possibly benefit. It’s because it was an entirely disingenuous claim in my opinion, these people only care about the football team doing well and their own benefit from that. “We don’t demand a team that wins, just a club that tries” wasn’t quite true for them and the hypocrisy of it will follow them around. Wor Flags were critical, campaigning, on the records of Ashley and Steve Bruce, but we see only fawning over the Saudi regime as publicity stunts for the club are rolled out free of any morals or ethics. German ultras they’re not, as the club uses them as a marketing tool. “If the football’s good we don’t care about anything else” seems to be the position all of these people take and it shames them and a city they claim to care about. They don’t choose the owners of a club, none of us do, but they do shape the moral tone by appointing themselves fan leaders. The silence betrays their lack of moral character, principles and judgement, their hypocrisy based on their own records. As for the local and large parts of the national media, the kindest thing I can say is their industry is dying and that means they have lost all sense of what their role actually is.

The people who watch Newcastle United aren’t supposed to be the moral arbiters of the world. Life in the North East is hard enough for an awful lot of people, which in itself provides a good reason for the Saudis to take over the football club. Football is supposed to be our relief, our joy. Plenty of people have not the will, care, time, or resources to campaign against the Saudi State and it’s not incumbent on them to do so. Many I know have great concerns and acknowledge the issues identified above. Life is full of vastly imperfect compromises we all have to make just to get by or on. However, there is a line. I cannot go to games and not acknowledge that we are being used, all of us. My way of countering it is to speak out, albeit anonymously, as an individual. I speak to friends, circulate information and articles, try and show solidarity wherever I can. I hear concerns from people who feel disconnected from the club as English football is transformed into a global commodity, culture and identity flogged off with nothing coming back for supporters. There is rancour and talking to people about its causes, why the Saudis want to use our club, is worthwhile. I have watched Newcastle United under many owners and never liked any of them particularly, despite any success we have had. That doesn’t change now even though the people in charge are by far the worst people of them all. All I can hope is that others recognise it and speak out among themselves and the flag of the Saudi State is no longer used as a symbol of devotion to a club and city that is better than that.

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