Kid Icarus

You gonna play? Has it not already started?

at Disco using the Uni's Zoom.

His post could have been made in any thread regardless of context. Had nowt to do with the purchase. The regimes are only comparable because someone has to be the worst at any given moment. Like saying NUFC are the north east team closest to Liverpool in quality. Okay, sure. But we're still f***ing light years behind, it's just a technically true statement that's unproductive. I just meant that the Saudis are being specifically highlighted in this discussion because they're the ones about to buy the club, but otherwise yeah I agree.

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. And the changes in political trends rather than social trends? If they've changed, great, but all I see in this post is the Saudi version of conflating the generational trends of the average Bernie Sanders supporter with Donald Trump the person.

Tbf to Wullie, none of the other contenders for the title of most evil are about to buy our football club.

Without a shadow of a doubt.

Nah I know, it's just a funny position to be in, I'm sure you can appreciate that.

I'm not sure 'the Nazis were worse' is the best collective argument either way like.

I'd probably personally put Israel and the U.S governments ahead of the Saudis', but this is just the opposite end of the whataboutism point and detracts from the fact that the Saudis are evil and that it's them that are potentially buying our club, no one else.

Keep your optimism in the optimism thread please, only neutral opinions in here thanks.

Probably because it's unavoidable, it smacks you in the face. People might want to pretend it's tribalism and that it's other clubs as if this forum hasn't had a thread dedicated to the Saudis for the last 5 years and that we haven't been rightly slagging off Man City for the past decade, but both things are true. If anything it would be hypocritical for the same people to pretend everything's sound now because it's our club that'll reap the rewards.

No

To elaborate on this: I have a laptop from HP, they assist in building equipment for the Isreali army who do what they do in Palenstine. As a gift I was bought Armani aftershave who made Nazi uniforms back in the day. We have medication from Bayer who deliberately infected people with HIV. We buy coffee from companies who exploit their farmers in third world countries. We live in a f***ing s*** world, but where do you start? Surely I'd have to boycott them all to avoid total hypocrisy? You don't have to start, it's not our fault that we're in the position that in order to function within society we have to prop up evil institutions. I think the only thing I personally take issue with or that I've seen other people take issue with is those that are either trying to imply that there's a moral equivalence with the Saudis and the other examples of shittiness when they're not equivalent, or that the other examples in the world mean that stating a preference for our club not being owned by murderers makes you a hypocrite, which is ridiculous. If that were the case, no one could ever point out any specific shittiness or say they want things to improve without being a hypocrite on the basis that there are other examples too. I personally don't use Uber anymore and try to avoid Amazon and Nestle if I can, but that's a choice I've personally made despite also eating meat and sticking the heating on when it's cold. Does that mean I'm disqualified from saying I'd prefer a lab-grown meat industry and renewable energy? Or do I need to go full vegan and freeze to death? Of course not. Ironically, the trend of putting the onus on the individual (society's obsession with each individual's carbon footprint while 100 companies are to blame for 71% of it, being the best example imo) is largely how the people who are actually guilty get away with it. Also, was it not Hugo Boss that made suits for the Nazis? Or both? I dunno.

I think you either accept it or you don't, as soon as you start the discussion on morality then you begin from a losing position, as the negatives of the regime currently outweigh the positives. Trying to justify if or overtly celebrating it (please no headscarves ) is just painting us in a bad light. Is anyone justifying or celebrating human rights abuses ffs? What absolute nonsense. People are overtly celebrating the departure of the club's horrible owner to be replaced by extremely wealthy new owners. The two issues ARE separate and people will eventually have to come down off their high horses when the realisation of their hypocrisy sets in. You still talking about journalists here? I'm talking about people who are wagging their disapproving fingers at NUFC fans over this takeover, be they journalists, own fans or other clubs' fans. Suddenly internet people have moral issues with the Saudi government? Is the concern for the victims genuine or is it just a fashionable topic to pontificate on? If the concern is genuine what have these people done to put pressure on their own governments to stop actively aiding this regime? Do any of these people actually know the history of the kingdom and how it came to be? Perhaps a slight in-depth understanding of this history might shed a bit of light on the hypocrisy I'm talking about. My overall point is that there's no doubt the Saudis are an oppressive extremist regime who can't be allowed to carry on what they've been doing for decades. Not only on a local but also a regional and international scale. The responsibility of that doesn't lie anywhere near Newcastle United fans though. And if people are happy to turn a blind eye to crimes of other nations/owners/criminals in their sport or league then they can also leave NUFC well the f*** alone to get on with it. Ah okay, so you are having a go at our own fans and presuming that the moral issues that people have with the Saudi government are sudden then. As pointed in my previous post, at least on here, that presumption is total bullshit.

I think you either accept it or you don't, as soon as you start the discussion on morality then you begin from a losing position, as the negatives of the regime currently outweigh the positives. Trying to justify if or overtly celebrating it (please no headscarves ) is just painting us in a bad light. Is anyone justifying or celebrating human rights abuses ffs? What absolute nonsense. People are overtly celebrating the departure of the club's horrible owner to be replaced by extremely wealthy new owners. The two issues ARE separate and people will eventually have to come down off their high horses when the realisation of their hypocrisy sets in. You still talking about journalists here?

"Anyone who uses petrol..." is mine

Think I've seen this one before.

I asked this in an earlier post but it was buried in the middle, so I'll ask it now. We've had people making the point that they support the team not the regime for the last 13 years, so why does the same principle not apply now? The thinking behind it was that you're supporting Newcastle but you don't support Ashley and wouldn't defend or excuse him, so why not support Newcastle without feeling the need to defend or excuse the Saudis?

All this post has done is just show everyone that you've never been in the chat section tbh. There's quite literally a thread on the Saudi's that's been there since 2015 and likewise the U.S thread. Plenty on here put the graft in for political parties, organisations, charities, and in QuakesMag's case has even made documentaries about this sort of stuff. You're just showing your own ignorance by assuming this has only been brought up now tbh. Again though, framing not wanting the football club to be owned by literal murders isn't a PC bollocks like. It's just not. I've been in the chat section plenty in the past thank you very much. I'm far more aware of the atrocities committed by the Saudi regime than even the likes of QM. My point was regarding the emerging noises in the London press who are suddenly questioning the morality of NUFC fans for getting excited about a takeover of their club. These hypocrites never made a peep about the vicious Saudi regime until stories of this takeover began to come out. The Saudi regime, along with the American and British for that matter, have been committing atrocities for decades. These w*****s don't mind all the killing but strongly oppose the takeover of a football club? Tbf, there's nothing in your post that makes it clear that you're talking specifically about journalists to anyone reading it. Even then the point you're making in bold isn't really true, like. Agree that overall there should be a lot more attention on the Saudis though.

Don't begrudge anyone that at all like.

You see all of the comments on here and on Twitter from Newcastle fans excusing or deflecting away from Saudi human rights abuses who wouldn't be doing any excusing or deflecting if they weren't buying the football team they support? That's just one part of how it works. Once they revitalise the region that's another step among people who might not even necessarily follow football - 'say what you will about the Saudis, but they've done wonders for the region' will be something we're likely to hear a lot imo. This is a good article on it - https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester-city-abu-dhabi-uae-sports-washing-199116 It works both ways though. By adopting a British football club they also have to buy into how we do sport. When they show Newcastle matches in Saudi Arabia, they'll be seeing women at football games, probably the odd close up of someone swilling lager, etc. All this filters back into their society as well, hopefully it will improve it. The alternative is to be like Isis or North Korea, and just ban everything and refuse interaction with the outside world full stop. Same goes for us, we could also, as a country, just tell Saudi Arabia to do one, but we don't, if anything they are key trade partners. Does that mean their regime is any less reprehensible? No, but it does show that when we as a country aren't prepared to put our foot down because it suits our interests not to, then it's not the job of Newcastle fans to f*** over our own club to satisfy Martin Samuels and other c***s like him. No one has said it's our responsibility of our fans to do anything tbf, just that we shouldn't be manipulated into excusing or glorifying their actions because they might improve the fortunes of our favourite football team. Having interaction isn't the issue though, it's the nature of the interaction. If the interactions our country is having with the Saudi's was part of a U.N Human Rights improvement initiative or something, fair enough, but our country's interaction has been to sell them weapons so they can bomb children's hospitals in Yemen, and our club and city's interaction will likely be to overlook their human rights record because they've improved our material interests. I don't think we should underestimate how comfortable power is with having blatant double standards. The man who's buying the club who you say will have to buy in our way of doing sport, currently has a Saudi princess under house arrest for wanting exactly the reforms and improvements you're saying could filter back to their society and improve it.

To be completely honest I hadn't looked at who the potential owner was at that point I'd probably not be posting at all if it wasn't for who he is and for being bored and in isolation. I stopped caring about the club around last July, but I do care about this piece of shit turning around the public perception of him and the Saudis among the people in our city.

You see all of the comments on here and on Twitter from Newcastle fans excusing or deflecting away from Saudi human rights abuses who wouldn't be doing any excusing or deflecting if they weren't buying the football team they support? That's just one part of how it works. Once they revitalise the region that's another step among people who might not even necessarily follow football - 'say what you will about the Saudis, but they've done wonders for the region' will be something we're likely to hear a lot imo. This is a good article on it - https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester-city-abu-dhabi-uae-sports-washing-199116

All this post has done is just show everyone that you've never been in the chat section tbh. There's quite literally a thread on the Saudi's that's been there since 2015 and likewise the U.S thread. Plenty on here put the graft in for political parties, organisations, charities, and in QuakesMag's case has even made documentaries about this sort of stuff. You're just showing your own ignorance by assuming this has only been brought up now tbh. Again though, framing not wanting the football club to be owned by literal murders isn't a PC bollocks like. It's just not.

Probably should have included that in my post tbh, but just thought it would be a given.