Assume those in the football world protesting so loudly about the Saudi human rights record will also be boycotting next winter's World Cup given how many migrant workers died in building the stadiums.
I believe there were quite a lot of protesting at the time Qatar was picked for the world cup.
Yet again the football world choosing greed over morality.
Surprised more hasn’t be made of the fact this mob were in for us and Roland ruined it.
I know RH has got lots right about us but he has also got the odd thing wrong. I am not sure I buy that a group with £290bn or whatever it is were out I'd by the Aussies for us if they were really keen. Also not convinced they would base their entire CAFC business plan around a few houses in Eltham being built or not. I wonder if there was more than one cake Sheikh.
That said, with Amanda Stavely having 10% of Newcastle how much money will they actually throw at them? If they keep dipping their hands in their pocket for further investment surely she has to keep up her 10% or get diluted to oblivion.
Torturing, killing and bone-sawing a journalist because he criticised the Saudi Royal Family in a few columns is now relegated to cheap humour thanks to sportswashing.
The whataboutery that’s flooded social media in the wake of this is fucking astounding (adopts weasly sneering voice) “well I assume you’ll also be boycotting…as well.” As if you can’t object to anything in life without objecting to everything. It’s fucking inane.
I would love to take a stand against any and every morally dubious company, product, football club or human being that doesn’t measure up to the standards I demand. But it’s completely impractical. We vote for people so they can change this shit at the top. That’s the hope at least. I sure as shit didn’t vote for the Tories let alone expect that to happen. So what do I do? I don’t know much about investment banking but I’m told by angry / defensive Geordies that the Saudis have shares in Twitter? Well fuck. Guess I’m off Twitter if I want to win that argument. Except I need it to make a living so that’s out.
The Saudis own horses so I can’t object to the football thing because I didn’t pull an Emily Davison last year? Ah shit. Guess I’ll have to change my name to Bobby Robson and tattoo black and white stripes across my face. Even though the closest I’ve ever been connected to horse racing is when I had a drink in a pub in Epsom town centre.
A government I didn’t vote for sold some guns to the Saudis? That sounds fucked up to my simple brain. If people voted with me that probably wouldn’t have happened. And I don’t think there’s much I can do about it beyond telling people so that maybe that’ll impact their vote next time.
One Geordie wouldn’t back down in a row on Twitter. His argument was that we hadn’t picketed outside the Catholic Church to complain about child abuse. Seriously. Fucking child abuse at the churches.That’s what he said. As if crimes against children by a church justify the persecutors of gay people investing in a new striker. I wanted to post the Tweet here earlier in the week but it’s so ludicrous I couldn’t do it. But fuck it, in the wake of that horse comment, here it is.
With my tiny budget and limited understanding of economics it will always be possible to whatabout me or call me a hypocrite. I wish I could live the right life to avoid it, but I’m not ready to become apathetic just yet.
The Newcastle takeover is a fucking disgrace, no matter what horse some small guy is riding in the 2.15 at Chepstow. The reasons for it are what make it so. It’s not about greed, it’s about papering over the crimes of an evil regime. And just like the poster on here who told me - over and over again to a weird degree - that I should get over the Man City thing because he likes to jerk off over their brand of football and Pep’s oversized jumpers, many will get excited at the prospect of rich and greedy footballers moving to a cold and wet part of the country to lap up the riches. Their football will do precisely what the new owners want - make the wider public think nice thoughts about them despite their brutal and murderous antics.
Newcastle supporters have been put in a shitty position and I don’t have the answers for what they should do or say. I don’t blame them for not walking away from their club, even though I would (and mostly have in terms of pro football anyway). Hell, I don’t even blame them for being excited. What I do blame them for is saying ‘what about’ because that’s lazy, desperate and completely besides the fucking point.
The whataboutery that’s flooded social media in the wake of this is fucking astounding (adopts weasly sneering voice) “well I assume you’ll also be boycotting…as well.” As if you can’t object to anything in life without objecting to everything. It’s fucking inane.
I would love to take a stand against any and every morally dubious company, product, football club or human being that doesn’t measure up to the standards I demand. But it’s completely impractical. We vote for people so they can change this shit at the top. That’s the hope at least. I sure as shit didn’t vote for the Tories let alone expect that to happen. So what do I do? I don’t know much about investment banking but I’m told by angry / defensive Geordies that the Saudis have shares in Twitter? Well fuck. Guess I’m off Twitter if I want to win that argument. Except I need it to make a living so that’s out.
The Saudis own horses so I can’t object to the football thing because I didn’t pull an Emily Davison last year? Ah shit. Guess I’ll have to change my name to Bobby Robson and tattoo black and white stripes across my face. Even though the closest I’ve ever been connected to horse racing is when I had a drink in a pub in Epsom town centre.
A government I didn’t vote for sold some guns to the Saudis? That sounds fucked up to my simple brain. If people voted with me that probably wouldn’t have happened. And I don’t think there’s much I can do about it beyond telling people so that maybe that’ll impact their vote next time.
One Geordie wouldn’t back down in a row on Twitter. His argument was that we hadn’t picketed outside the Catholic Church to complain about child abuse. Seriously. Fucking child abuse at the churches.That’s what he said. As if crimes against children by a church justify the persecutors of gay people investing in a new striker. I wanted to post the Tweet here earlier in the week but it’s so ludicrous I couldn’t do it. But fuck it, in the wake of that horse comment, here it is.
With my tiny budget and limited understanding of economics it will always be possible to whatabout me or call me a hypocrite. I wish I could live the right life to avoid it, but I’m not ready to become apathetic just yet.
The Newcastle takeover is a fucking disgrace, no matter what horse some small guy is riding in the 2.15 at Chepstow. The reasons for it are what make it so. It’s not about greed, it’s about papering over the crimes of an evil regime. And just like the poster on here who told me - over and over again to a weird degree - that I should get over the Man City thing because he likes to jerk off over their brand of football and Pep’s oversized jumpers, many will get excited at the prospect of rich and greedy footballers moving to a cold and wet part of the country to lap up the riches. Their football will do precisely what the new owners want - make the wider public think nice thoughts about them despite their brutal and murderous antics.
Newcastle supporters have been put in a shitty position and I don’t have the answers for what they should do or say. I don’t blame them for not walking away from their club, even though I would (and mostly have in terms of pro football anyway). Hell, I don’t even blame them for being excited. What I do blame them for is saying ‘what about’ because that’s lazy, desperate and completely besides the fucking point.
There is only one guarantee in this takeover and its that the following will all occur before Saturday as with all dubious owners who like to pretend how in touch they are with the club.
1. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'sustainable'.
2. The manager will be sacked before ever overseeing a game for the new owners.
3. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'long term'
4. There will be numerous mentions of the phrase 'not paying over the odds'.
5. There will be grand statements made about improving the training ground
6. There will be numerous mentions of 'how important the academy is'
7. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'ambition'
8. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'Project'
9. My personal favourite, At least one of the owners will follow a local tradition such as necking a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale to show how 'In touch' they are with the club.
10. Fans will gush about said new owner and how 'in-touch' they are with the club.
I see Amanda Stavelys grinning chops all over the papers,where does she fit into this and how much has she invested,or is she just hanging on to some coat tails.
Sky Sports said last week she owns 10% of PIF.
Stavely may own 10% of Newcastle United but certainly not PIF!
PWR here but these wealth numbers are just for headlines. I have no doubt they will be spending big but this is a PR exercise for the Saudis and will be a relatively small investment for PIF. A Premier League version of Ipswich is what I would expect.
I done some work for her about 8yrs ago and knew she was well off but didn't realise she's THAT well off.
There is only one guarantee in this takeover and its that the following will all occur before Saturday as with all dubious owners who like to pretend how in touch they are with the club.
1. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'sustainable'.
2. The manager will be sacked before ever overseeing a game for the new owners.
3. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'long term'
4. There will be numerous mentions of the phrase 'not paying over the odds'.
5. There will be grand statements made about improving the training ground
6. There will be numerous mentions of 'how important the academy is'
7. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'ambition'
8. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'Project'
9. My personal favourite, At least one of the owners will follow a local tradition such as necking a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale to show how 'In touch' they are with the club.
10. Fans will gush about said new owner and how 'in-touch' they are with the club.
Fans will turn up wearing tea towels and bedsheets.
There is only one guarantee in this takeover and its that the following will all occur before Saturday as with all dubious owners who like to pretend how in touch they are with the club.
1. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'sustainable'.
2. The manager will be sacked before ever overseeing a game for the new owners.
3. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'long term'
4. There will be numerous mentions of the phrase 'not paying over the odds'.
5. There will be grand statements made about improving the training ground
6. There will be numerous mentions of 'how important the academy is'
7. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'ambition'
8. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'Project'
9. My personal favourite, At least one of the owners will follow a local tradition such as necking a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale to show how 'In touch' they are with the club.
10. Fans will gush about said new owner and how 'in-touch' they are with the club.
Fans will turn up wearing tea towels and bedsheets.
Football is awash with greed nowadays and everyone is as bad as each other. I'm probably just as guilty myself as I have the Sky Subscriptions, watch the games etc. I used to hear those fans a few years ago who said they preferred lower league or national league football and think they were mad and yet now I'm increasingly coming round to their way of thinking.
Let's not pretend that Newcastle fans give a damn about Saudi Arabia's human rights record. Maybe 2% will have genuine concerns, and 1% of those will get over it once the new owners go out and buy them Coutinho etc who state there signing for the 'exciting project' and not the 350k a week. The other 98% don't care who owns them as they long as their club has success.
That's not exclusive to Newcastle fans either so I'm not singling them out, I think almost every club's fans would do the same, or indeed have done already if you look at the likes of Chelsea etc. I'm sure many Sunderland fans are outwardly expressing their disgust at the takeover yet if the owners had come in for them instead of Newcastle they'd have snapped their arms off.
I'm genuinely not kidding when I say if the president of North Korea or Syria came along and said they wanted to buy another club with a fractious relationship with their owners, say Spurs or West Ham purely as an example, you would have fans advocating it. 'Oh well Chelsea and Newcastle have dubious owners so why shouldn't we'. Those who opposed it would be accused of disloyalty to the club and not wanting what is best for the team, and most would drop their opposition if Kim-Jong-Un decided to go out and buy Neymar and Mpabbe and you'd see fans outside waving the Korean flag.
You hear almost every fan of every club saying they just want 'sustainability' and to see 'academy players in the team' and yet whenever that happens and doesn't achieve instant success fans start crying out that owner lacks ambition and is trying to do things on the cheap. There are lots of unknowns about the Newcastle takeover but the one thing I can be pretty sure of is academy products like Freddie Woodman, Sean and Matty Longstaff etc won't be there next season.
Look at the protests against Man Utd's owners last season, as soon as the owners dip their hand in their pocket and hand them a shiny new Ronaldo all the anger seems to subside. Its like a neglectful and absent parent who tries to make it up to their kids by buying them an expensive birthday present every now and again.
Like any Charlton fan I want success, my children are not old enough to attend games yet but when they do I hope we are playing in the highest league possible with the best players. However if the choice is us playing in the Premier League with fans waving the flags of some state who sees human rights as an inconvenience or playing in League one with an owner who genuinely cares about the club and has decent motives then I can tell you which one I'd rather take my children too.
Watching the Newcastle fans wave the Saudi Arabian flag outside their ground reminded me of a line from Peep Show.
'That's the way of the world now. Let's just stick a zip here, a swastika there. Who knows what these things were once used for. And who the heck even cares'. Quite apt.
Difficult to argue against. The whole thing happening to football has suddenly struck me as a sort of parallel to colonialism. A bunch of people and clubs are more or less minding their own business in Football-land. Along comes a bunch of financial explorers … “can we make some serious money here? Yes let’s rename this land as The Premiership and start selling what’s happening here back to its fan inhabitants. We’ll build a subscription wall around the land and if they can’t afford to pay to get in, they can eff off to … to… the the unproductive lower leagues lands”. Fans whose families have loved their team on this land for generations have two choices pay up or eff off. Meanwhile a bunch of rich settlers move in taking over large swathes of clubs. Again those fans still remaining inside have to choose between remaining in their clubland despite the foreign owner and manager largely replacing the team with offshore mercenaries and cutting off the development of the next generation of local talent. Is the land still theirs? Is the club still theirs? That’s the sorts of choices fans of Newcastle and the like are making.
An interesting comparison. At its height, British colonialism accounted for just under 25% of the world's population and land area (Wiki). So the fact that GB does not own a quarter of the world's professional footy teams shows just how world unbeating Blighty has become at colonialism, some 100 years later.
There is only one guarantee in this takeover and its that the following will all occur before Saturday as with all dubious owners who like to pretend how in touch they are with the club.
1. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'sustainable'.
2. The manager will be sacked before ever overseeing a game for the new owners.
3. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'long term'
4. There will be numerous mentions of the phrase 'not paying over the odds'.
5. There will be grand statements made about improving the training ground
6. There will be numerous mentions of 'how important the academy is'
7. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'ambition'
8. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'Project'
9. My personal favourite, At least one of the owners will follow a local tradition such as necking a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale to show how 'In touch' they are with the club.
10. Fans will gush about said new owner and how 'in-touch' they are with the club.
Fans will turn up wearing tea towels and bedsheets.
Football is awash with greed nowadays and everyone is as bad as each other. I'm probably just as guilty myself as I have the Sky Subscriptions, watch the games etc. I used to hear those fans a few years ago who said they preferred lower league or national league football and think they were mad and yet now I'm increasingly coming round to their way of thinking.
Let's not pretend that Newcastle fans give a damn about Saudi Arabia's human rights record. Maybe 2% will have genuine concerns, and 1% of those will get over it once the new owners go out and buy them Coutinho etc who state there signing for the 'exciting project' and not the 350k a week. The other 98% don't care who owns them as they long as their club has success.
That's not exclusive to Newcastle fans either so I'm not singling them out, I think almost every club's fans would do the same, or indeed have done already if you look at the likes of Chelsea etc. I'm sure many Sunderland fans are outwardly expressing their disgust at the takeover yet if the owners had come in for them instead of Newcastle they'd have snapped their arms off.
I'm genuinely not kidding when I say if the president of North Korea or Syria came along and said they wanted to buy another club with a fractious relationship with their owners, say Spurs or West Ham purely as an example, you would have fans advocating it. 'Oh well Chelsea and Newcastle have dubious owners so why shouldn't we'. Those who opposed it would be accused of disloyalty to the club and not wanting what is best for the team, and most would drop their opposition if Kim-Jong-Un decided to go out and buy Neymar and Mpabbe and you'd see fans outside waving the Korean flag.
You hear almost every fan of every club saying they just want 'sustainability' and to see 'academy players in the team' and yet whenever that happens and doesn't achieve instant success fans start crying out that owner lacks ambition and is trying to do things on the cheap. There are lots of unknowns about the Newcastle takeover but the one thing I can be pretty sure of is academy products like Freddie Woodman, Sean and Matty Longstaff etc won't be there next season.
Look at the protests against Man Utd's owners last season, as soon as the owners dip their hand in their pocket and hand them a shiny new Ronaldo all the anger seems to subside. Its like a neglectful and absent parent who tries to make it up to their kids by buying them an expensive birthday present every now and again.
Like any Charlton fan I want success, my children are not old enough to attend games yet but when they do I hope we are playing in the highest league possible with the best players. However if the choice is us playing in the Premier League with fans waving the flags of some state who sees human rights as an inconvenience or playing in League one with an owner who genuinely cares about the club and has decent motives then I can tell you which one I'd rather take my children too.
Watching the Newcastle fans wave the Saudi Arabian flag outside their ground reminded me of a line from Peep Show.
'That's the way of the world now. Let's just stick a zip here, a swastika there. Who knows what these things were once used for. And who the heck even cares'. Quite apt.
Difficult to argue against. The whole thing happening to football has suddenly struck me as a sort of parallel to colonialism. A bunch of people and clubs are more or less minding their own business in Football-land. Along comes a bunch of financial explorers … “can we make some serious money here? Yes let’s rename this land as The Premiership and start selling what’s happening here back to its fan inhabitants. We’ll build a subscription wall around the land and if they can’t afford to pay to get in, they can eff off to … to… the the unproductive lower leagues lands”. Fans whose families have loved their team on this land for generations have two choices pay up or eff off. Meanwhile a bunch of rich settlers move in taking over large swathes of clubs. Again those fans still remaining inside have to choose between remaining in their clubland despite the foreign owner and manager largely replacing the team with offshore mercenaries and cutting off the development of the next generation of local talent. Is the land still theirs? Is the club still theirs? That’s the sorts of choices fans of Newcastle and the like are making.
An interesting comparison. At its height, British colonialism accounted for just under 25% of the world's population and land area (Wiki). So the fact that GB does not own a quarter of the world's professional footy teams shows just how world unbeating Blighty has become at colonialism, some 100 years later.
The sun now sets on the British empire at suppertime or thereabouts.
Seen a few videos now with her meeting fans and shaking hands getting cheers and claps, reminds me of Southall walking through the fans bar thinking he was a king
There is only one guarantee in this takeover and its that the following will all occur before Saturday as with all dubious owners who like to pretend how in touch they are with the club.
1. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'sustainable'.
2. The manager will be sacked before ever overseeing a game for the new owners.
3. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'long term'
4. There will be numerous mentions of the phrase 'not paying over the odds'.
5. There will be grand statements made about improving the training ground
6. There will be numerous mentions of 'how important the academy is'
7. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'ambition'
8. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'Project'
9. My personal favourite, At least one of the owners will follow a local tradition such as necking a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale to show how 'In touch' they are with the club.
10. Fans will gush about said new owner and how 'in-touch' they are with the club.
At what point do the Saudi's start to panic about actually staying in the premier league this season?
Just 4 points from 10 games, with another 10 games before the January window opens.
Brighton away Brentford home Arsenal away Norwich home Burnley home Leicester away Liverpool away Man City home Man Utd home Everton away
Need to get as many points as they can from the Brentford/Norwich/Burnley home games or they'll be in big trouble and even with 150 million to spend they'll struggle to sign anyone decent.
Hopefully they'll offer Chelsea £100m for Connor Gallagher to get him away from Palace.
Genuinely feel that he'd be an excellent opening signing for the new regime up there
Feel like he'd have the potential to be the sort of Vincent Kompany type signing that Man City brought in and just grow with the club as they climb the table, rather than just as a short term incoming.
Hopefully they'll offer Chelsea £100m for Connor Gallagher to get him away from Palace.
Genuinely feel that he'd be an excellent opening signing for the new regime up there
Feel like he'd have the potential to be the sort of Vincent Kompany type signing that Man City brought in and just grow with the club as they climb the table, rather than just as a short term incoming.
It sounds like a good fit but I heard he didn't enjoy being away from his home and family, which affected his football at WBA and led to him ending up at Palace.
Comments
Yet again the football world choosing greed over morality.
The public have no choice in these matters.
I know RH has got lots right about us but he has also got the odd thing wrong. I am not sure I buy that a group with £290bn or whatever it is were out I'd by the Aussies for us if they were really keen. Also not convinced they would base their entire CAFC business plan around a few houses in Eltham being built or not. I wonder if there was more than one cake Sheikh.
That said, with Amanda Stavely having 10% of Newcastle how much money will they actually throw at them? If they keep dipping their hands in their pocket for further investment surely she has to keep up her 10% or get diluted to oblivion.
I would love to take a stand against any and every morally dubious company, product, football club or human being that doesn’t measure up to the standards I demand. But it’s completely impractical. We vote for people so they can change this shit at the top. That’s the hope at least. I sure as shit didn’t vote for the Tories let alone expect that to happen. So what do I do? I don’t know much about investment banking but I’m told by angry / defensive Geordies that the Saudis have shares in Twitter? Well fuck. Guess I’m off Twitter if I want to win that argument. Except I need it to make a living so that’s out.
Great post.
From Jimmy.
I'm in the know, you know
1. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'sustainable'.
2. The manager will be sacked before ever overseeing a game for the new owners.
3. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'long term'
4. There will be numerous mentions of the phrase 'not paying over the odds'.
5. There will be grand statements made about improving the training ground
6. There will be numerous mentions of 'how important the academy is'
7. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'ambition'
8. There will be numerous mentions of the word 'Project'
9. My personal favourite, At least one of the owners will follow a local tradition such as necking a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale to show how 'In touch' they are with the club.
10. Fans will gush about said new owner and how 'in-touch' they are with the club.
At its height, British colonialism accounted for just under 25% of the world's population and land area (Wiki).
So the fact that GB does not own a quarter of the world's professional footy teams shows just how world unbeating Blighty has become at colonialism, some 100 years later.
Seen a few videos now with her meeting fans and shaking hands getting cheers and claps, reminds me of Southall walking through the fans bar thinking he was a king
Most of these were done by Sandgaard.
https://news.paddypower.com/football/2021/10/12/breaking-messi-bids-tearful-goodbye-to-psg-ahead-of-newcastle-move-%E2%80%8B/
:-)
Just 4 points from 10 games, with another 10 games before the January window opens.
Brighton away
Brentford home
Arsenal away
Norwich home
Burnley home
Leicester away
Liverpool away
Man City home
Man Utd home
Everton away
Need to get as many points as they can from the Brentford/Norwich/Burnley home games or they'll be in big trouble and even with 150 million to spend they'll struggle to sign anyone decent.
Genuinely feel that he'd be an excellent opening signing for the new regime up there
Feel like he'd have the potential to be the sort of Vincent Kompany type signing that Man City brought in and just grow with the club as they climb the table, rather than just as a short term incoming.