Chris_R

I feel like someone who has been kept hostage by my abuser for 13 years, and now they've opened the door and told me I can leave. I can see the daylight and smell the fresh air, but I'm just waiting for them to slam the door shut and laugh maniacally at me for even thinking freedom was a possibility. My brain won't even let me begin to process what life on the outside may feel like. I'm Stockholmed up to the eyeballs here.

The new ruler does want change. He's from a new generation, unlike all of the previous ones who were either Ibn Bin Saud himself, or one of his brothers. They finally ran out of brothers though and had to go to a new generation. Things are changing for a reason, he genuinely wants to open up the country. The pace of change since he came in, compared to the previous rulers, has been massive. He can't really even go faster because many of the locals are scared it'll be too much too soon and don't want to lose their identity, so if anything he's having to go at a pace the people will tolerate.

That’s not true though is it? Yes, it is true. Having spent time there with work (our company has since disinvested, some macro reasoning but also based on valuations), I have spoken to tens if not hundreds of people in their twenties and thirties in Riyadh who are open, global and good people who have studied outside Saudi and want to see and be part of it become a more open and tolerant society, while also being fiercely proud of their country and their religion. Saudi Arabia has a million miles to go to become close to being as progressive and advanced in certain areas as they could and should be if held to Western standards, but if you genuinely think they aren't moving forward in this regard when you look at generational trends, then you've not looked beyond headlines in the last few years. By way of a very obvious example, last time I was there several meetings with big banks and the regulator were led by females. Something this simple was inconceivable until fairly recently. Are they trying to use sports to improve their global standing and become more integrated in the western world? Absolutely. Does this make me feel uncomfortable when associated with my team? In some ways it does, in others I'm fairly accepting that this is cause and effect of broader society these days. Am I going to stop following / not attend games as a result? No, it means too much and it's been way too long since I've been able to truly enjoy watching Newcastle. If this comes off then it's mine and my dad's time to get to games and have some hope while he's still able. If it makes me a hypocrite so be it. It does get somewhat boring reading the standard left sided trope rolled out whenever it can be applied of Saudi (or US, or Israel) bad and evil without any balancing factors for the other sides involved in these proxy wars and nothing more than rudimentary understanding of the underlying centuries of religious and political discourse that have got the world to where it is. It becomes even more taxing watching it played out on a football forum. But such is life. Well thought out post. If may I ask what’ exactly is stopping them from moving faster and say bringing in democracy or allowing journalists to be more critical or allowing homosexuality? Say in ten years what kind of regime will we be looking at? I'm not Rafalove, but I've been to Saudi 7 times myself in the last 5 years, normally for about a month at a time. I've been to Riyadh 3 times, Dhahran 3 times, and to Jeddah once. In that time I've seen massive changes, even in just 5 years. They really are progressing, at quite a rate. However you ask what's stopping them allowing homosexuality, and the answer is clearly religion. This won't change. They're the literal centre of the Muslim world, and homosexuality is forbidden under the Quran. Nothing in the Quran is open to change, it can't even be printed in any language other than Arabic and has to stay in its original form, so there's no chance of homosexuality ever being allowed in any Muslim country. Maybe they'll reach a point where its ignored, and indeed largely it IS ignored - Just don't publicise it. I've got a friend who is as camp as Christmas, there's not a hope in hell anyone could speak to him for more than 10 seconds and not know he's gay, and he went to Riyadh just a few months ago and had no problems whatsoever. Religion plays a massive part there, the "call to prayer" is played out audibly many times a day and everything stops, all the shops shut, and all the Muslims go and pray. Then after 15 minutes or so, the shutters come back up and everything reopens. It takes a little getting used to, but if you're out and about as a non-Muslim you just park your arse somewhere and wait for a bit, no big deal. But it does mean there's no way that homosexuality can ever be "Ok" officially. It just can't, because the Quran forbids it. As for other things like allowing journalistic freedom or democracy, well, I can't see the monarchs giving up power willingly. That's not a Saudi thing, that's just a human nature thing. Their power gives them their wealth, there's no way they give that up. But they're hardly the only monarchy on Earth. And as for journalistic freedom, maybe we need to sort our own press out before we criticise anyone else's. Sure, our journalists don't end up chopped up, but the threat of not being in Boris's good books seems enough to stop most of the criticism that they should face. Most of our press is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, they all print whatever he wants. But you can have open discussions in Saudi Arabia. Last time I was there I spent a good couple of hours openly discussing politics with a group of about 6 or 7 Saudis. They were reasonably young and want democracy to come, but they realise it's a forlorn hope for now at least. They welcome the changes that are coming to their country whilst not wanting to lose their identity, women can now drive which everyone agrees is good, they're all absolutely certain that alcohol will soon be introduced for non-Muslim residents though obviously they personally (claim!) they're not interested in that happening. I've spent many evenings walking round the above cities and never once felt unsafe. Everyone has always treat me with respect, I've been lucky enough to be invited to some of their houses for dinner and they're a warm, proud, and welcoming people and I'm lucky enough to count quite a few of them as friends now.

This Sums it up perfectly.

Thanks.

What's this about a 350 page document? I missed the initial reference and now only see people referring to its existence. What is it?

To me, it'll always be St James' Park and that's what I'll always refer to it as. I'd massively prefer them NOT to change the stadium name, and all things being equal that's what I'd always want. But I admit I can be bought. If my choices are: A) Watch Newcastle scrap around 17th with Steve Bruce as manager at St James' Park B) Watch Newcastle win lift the Premier League title at the Prince MBS Arena Then I, for one, welcome our new Saudi Arabian overlords.

Double

:lol: I've got a quadcore CPU and 16gb of RAM and that site makes the fans go into turbo. Just get an adblocker. Not only does it make the website readable, but it deprives them off revenue too. I would add that I'm in favour of NOT depriving worthwhile sites of ad revenue, but the chronicle deserve nothing for the way they've reported on Newcastle and Ashley over the last 13 years and I'd not lose a moment's sleep if they folded. It's a shame because going to town on Ashley would surely be such an open goal for them if they wanted to take the shot, yet they've spent over a decade impersonating Ronnie Rosenthal. Fuck them. I don't like adblockers, websites need revenue. I agree 100%, and I don't use one for the vast majority of sites. I switch it on when clicking Chronicle links because their website is utter eye-AIDS and because they're a bunch of patsies who don't deserve a single penny whilst they continue the line they've trod. I've always sworn to myself that if they started behaving like a proper newspaper, I'd take off the adblocker, but they haven't and now it's too late. Thing is, I reckon once (if) the sale goes through, we'll see some revisionism from them where they act as if they hated Ashley all along. It's going to be quite galling to read. They'll probably do far more investigative journalism into his running of the club in the 6 months after he leaves than they've done in the 13 years he's been here, and that to me will be so damning. Again, fuck them. Horrible, spineless bastards. Their behaviour over Ashley has been tantamount to a dereliction of their journalistic duty.

Been saying for years , they are perfect for each other. Would love to see him buy them! He'd get them to the Premier League and probably have them hovering around 13th-17th like he has with us. Difference is, for them that really IS success. I'd rather they stayed where they are.

:lol: I've got a quadcore CPU and 16gb of RAM and that site makes the fans go into turbo. Just get an adblocker. Not only does it make the website readable, but it deprives them off revenue too. I would add that I'm in favour of NOT depriving worthwhile sites of ad revenue, but the chronicle deserve nothing for the way they've reported on Newcastle and Ashley over the last 13 years and I'd not lose a moment's sleep if they folded. It's a shame because going to town on Ashley would surely be such an open goal for them if they wanted to take the shot, yet they've spent over a decade impersonating Ronnie Rosenthal. Fuck them.

He needs to be ignored, not given pelters. He thrives on attention, obscurity would kill him. Just fucking ignore him. Only way to deal with his like. You're not correcting him by replying, he already knows he's wrong when he says it FFS.

That's nothing. Our government were complicit in the deaths of 72 innocent people in a burning tower. You're forgetting the 800+ per day dying now because they cared more about the economy than locking us down early, and their plans to chase "herd immunity" and only backing off when they realised 250,000 deaths might be too much, not for them, but for the public to accept.

Ashley is not lending them £150m for 5 years. Can you clarify for me the instalments part or whatever? There won't be any instalments. What needs clarifying about that?

For that reason, I can't allow myself to believe this will happen until it actually does. I refuse* to get excited. (*Maybe just a tiny bit)

I mean they all love us so much now, how will we cope with this new viewpoint? Yeah, it's going to be painful going from deluded Geordie twats to cancerous regime apologists, make no mistake. I think somehow I might be able to use the shelf full of trophies and happy memories to ameliorate the pain of their nasty words.

I mean they all love us so much now, how will we cope with this new viewpoint?

It's not possible to support the club and complain about our govt. selling them the weapons to commit atrocities. Not without being dismissed as a hypocrite. Well then dismiss me as a hypocrite, because that's exactly what I'm going to do. And I'll do it gladly. If the football is good, other people can fight the fight against the rest of it if they feel obliged and able to do so. In fact, if anything I'd be hypocritical NOT to do this because I've been to Saudi Arabia 7 times so far with work. Riyadh 3 times, Dhahran 3 times, and once to Jeddah, often for over a month at a time. I've spent a lot of time talking to the Saudi people there, been to their houses, even talked to them about politics and the reforms of MBS whilst in their country. I've already, indirectly through the company I work for, taken their actual money to pay my bills with. To then kick up a stink about them owning my football club would be far more hypocritical than - assuming it's as we hope - me just chilling out and enjoying it after all the footballing misery I've endured from Ashley for over a decade. I've already shown I can not fully support a regime yet still embrace what it offers me, and felt no hypocrisy at all when doing it. I can gladly extend that to football.

Haha, such a valid point. "He doesn't need the gate money, I'm not stopping going!" Gate money becomes zero, Ashley immediately sells.

It's perfectly possible to enjoy supporting the club but still disapprove of the actions of the owners in other areas. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. My main gripe with Ashley has always been his running of the club I supported. I've only ever drawn attention to his shit business practices as a way to put pressure on his ownership of the club. For example, whilst I acknowledge he's a cunt, I can't say I lose any sleep about how Philip Green runs his retail empire. He's of no consequence to me. What I want from my football club owner is someone who does their best firstly for the football club and, secondly, the region. Irrespective of how much I disapprove of their other practices, I'm not going to fight against them if they're doing their best on the footballing front. I'll let others who are involved in that specific area fight that fight, because first and foremost I'm a football supporter, not a diplomat or MP or Journalist. Let others do their job in that regard and I'll do mine of enjoying the football. After 13 years, I fucking deserve that much. I'm too tired.

It was 310 twenty minutes ago. Typical Ashley, moving the goal posts.

Maybe just copy and paste the text of it for us?

True.

Surely it's impossible for Rafa to come back, as he never breaks a contract and is currently under contract.

And I'll believe you when the ink is actually dry on the contract.