March 2022

by Steve Bishop

Being a football fan is tantamount to accepting a ticket to ride an emotional rollercoaster. None more so than being a fan of Newcastle United, the team which has suffered more ups, downs, almosts and maybes than any other in the Premier League. The heady days of Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson, the team led by the goal scoring machine, Alan Shearer, have long since passed, being replaced over the past decade or more by the dead hand ownership of sports tycoon Mike Ashley.

TOON FAILED BY BILLIONAIRE

Ashley’s tenure at St. James’ Park started off in 2007 in a blaze of optimism, with boozy pints down the Bigg Market and fans welcoming the Cockney entrepreneur as an adopted Geordie. Sinking into the Championship in 2007/08 the team bounced back first time and by the 2011/12 season had achieved the dizzy heights of fifth place in the Premier League.

It was of course a false dawn. Indifferent results, mediocre performances and poor player purchases resulted in a further relegation at the end of the 2015/16 season, which not even the revered Rafael Benitez could prevent. However, another bounce back saw top flight football return to St James for 2017/18 riding a further wave of optimism, that the tight fisted and increasingly despised Ashley would at least provide Rafa with the resources to strengthen the squad. It was not to be. At the end of 2018/19 a frustrated Benitez parted company, much to the disappointment of the Toon Army and local lad, but hardly exciting managerial prospect, Steve Bruce, took over the reins.

For non-football fans, already stifling a yawn, why is any of this important?

SAUDI MONEY

Two immediate reasons spring to mind. Firstly, football is big business and the Premier League is the world leader. Secondly, while the pressure on Premier League clubs to increase income has resulted in ever higher ticket prices, attendance at football matches in the UK is still a predominantly working class activity and what happens in and around the sport still has the power to influence attitudes.

As Newcastle United’s fortunes on the pitch declined so too did Mike Ashley’s interest in owning a ‘trophy’, albeit trophy-less, football club. The years of rumour and counter rumour about new buyers finally reached a conclusion this season when a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) coughed up the £350m Ashley had been holding out for and bought Newcastle United.

The Premier League had to engage in some fancy diplomatic footwork to approve the deal, given that it has a commitment only to approve ‘fit and proper’ owners. Not least was turning a blind eye to the scale of the PIF stake, being satisfied with assurances that the Saudi dictators will play no part in the running of the club. However, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the Chair of PIF, other Saudi ministers being on the board and the Saudi Royal Family as the major stakeholder, with 80% ownership, the Premier League could be accused of either being naïve or disingenuous. The fact is that in the Premier League, money talks, and the Saudis represent big money.

The Saudi deal is not the only dubious football purchase in recent years or the only example that money dictates the play on the international football stage. Roman Abramovich, may have been a knight in shining armour to many Chelsea fans, but less than a hero to many overworked and underpaid Russians. The oil rich Arab dictatorships have been moving into football in a big way recently. The Abu Dhabi royal family takeover of Manchester City in 2008 set the trend. Qatar will host the first desert-based World Cup in 2022, in a nation with no history or tradition in the game. To prove their bona fides the Qataris did proceed to buy French club, Paris St. Germain, showing that they have the interest of the sport at heart!

The Saudi deal with Newcastle United is by no means the only questionable issue of ownership in the Premier League. However, it does outstrip the others in the open and close involvement of members of the ruling dictatorship and the extent of their engagement in other dubious practices with the British government. It is estimated by Campaign Against the Arms Trade that more than £20 billion worth of arms have been sold to the Saudis by Britain since the bombing campaign against Yemen, started in 2015, a conflict which has seen an estimated 150,000 lose their lives and which the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

The Saudi led airstrike on a prison in the city of Saada in Yemen in January, resulted in an estimated 80 dead and over 200 injured. At the same time, in a strike on the port city of Hodeidah in the south, three children were killed. Beheadings, 90 last year alone, and public floggings continue to be the order of the day in Saudi Arabia. The rights of women are severely restricted and political opposition silenced. Quite how the Premier League regard these as the actions of fit and proper owners is questionable to say the least. Would a company 80% owned and controlled by Kim Jong Un, with a promise that the North Korean government would not directly interfere in the day to day running of the operation, have passed the Premier League’s scrutiny? Unlikely, unless Kim were to spend more time cavorting with the British Royal Family and buying UK manufactured weaponry!

DILEMMA FOR FANS

As a financial operation the Premier League is unequalled in world football.  As an ethical proposition it is sinking ever deeper into a mire of its own making. The extent to which football as an industry is bound to the world of international finance capital continues to grow. The recently mooted European Super League failed to materialise this time but the idea in some way, shape or form will be back.

Amnesty International have stated recently of the Newcastle United deal, that it risks making the Premier League, "a patsy of those who want to use the glamour and prestige of Premier League football to cover up actions that are deeply immoral, in breach of international law and at odds with the values of the global footballing community.”

For fans the dilemma is where to draw the line. Many baulked at handing over hard-earned cash to Mike Ashley, given his position on workers and trade union rights, but bit their lips to continue to support their team. Do the multi-millionaire Glazers, accused of asset stripping Manchester United, deserve our hard-earned cash or Russian oil gangster Abramovich? The list goes on but all have been deemed fit and proper by the Premier League. The league itself was the brainchild of marketing executives in the Murdoch empire, keen to get their new Sky TV channel off the ground. How many are now without a Sky satellite dish or a subscription to Sky Sports?

As socialists we are compromised daily. Can we be sure that those Nike trainers did not originate in a Thai sweatshop or that the cotton shirt we pull on was not made at the end of a 12-hour shift in a Bangladeshi garment factory? How many of us have not received an Amazon package recently? We are entirely dependent on capitalism to get through our daily lives with some of its goods being even more ethically unacceptable than others, but that is not to say that choices cannot be made. The boycott of South African goods played its part in raising awareness of the apartheid regime. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is working to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

For many though the choice not to support their local team runs too deep.  Football matches are bound up with socialising before and after games, meeting friends and family, being part of the shared highs and lows of the team’s fortunes. For most of the 50,000 regulars at St. James’ Park these ties are stronger than the fact that the team itself is now largely owned by a medieval dictatorship. Many Newcastle fans own up to being ‘conflicted’ but do not see the Saudi deal as being any worse than many others in the Premier League. They are not alone but the recent takeover has thrown the issue of club ownership across the league into sharp relief. Individually, fans will have to choose what they can live with but it may be that it is time to apply more rigorous standards across the Premier League as a whole. 

The fit and proper persons test for owners and directors has clearly failed in the case of PIF. However, it can be done differently. In Germany, in order to obtain a license to compete in the Bundesliga, a club must hold a majority of its own voting rights. The rule is designed to ensure that the club's members retain overall control by owning 50% of shares +1 share, protecting clubs from the influence of external investors. The system is not without its contradictions or challenges but is one example of a different approach. Whether the rest of Europe can resist the lure of international capital indefinitely remains to be seen. The Premier League clearly cannot but is by no means leading by good example.

Who flies the flag for Newcastle United? Pic by Ardfern