‘English football will sell itself to anyone’: human rights groups on Saudi-Newcastle deal
Newcastle United has sold its name and reputation to a brutal government run by a brutal ruler...
multiple human rights groups condemned the takeover and said it would allow Saudi Arabia to “sportswash” its image on the global stage...
“Newcastle has sold its name and reputation to a brutal government with a brutal ruler,” [Democracy for the Arab World Now's] executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said...
“I don’t think people really understand the corrupting influence that this deal will have. It normalises a dictator who literally goes around butchering journalists."...
The Premier League said it had allowed the deal to go through after accepting assurances from the PIF – the state’s sovereign wealth fund overseen by Bin Salman – that the Saudi state would not be involved in the day-to-day running of Newcastle.
However Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, said the Premier League had been mistaken.
“It’s wrong that the crown prince is now pretending that he is not involved in this proposed deal,” she said. “We all know he is using it to try to clean his image.”
That message was reinforced by Nabhan al-Hanshi, acting director of ALQST, a Saudi human rights group based in the UK, who described the PIF and the Saudi state as “inseparable”...
“This deal reflects the Saudi authorities’ PR strategy of investing in prestigious sporting ventures in a bid to clean up their image.”