The "delighted Ashley has gone, but uncomfortable with Saudi ownership" thread

[HaydnNUFC]

38 minutes ago, ManDoon said:

My issue with Delaney and his ilk is they happily sucked the trough dry of the blood money that has gone through the PL. The Russian WC was arguably the biggest sports washing excercise in history imo. He was there. And I understand the “it’s his job” but the same can be said of Howe, and for fans it’s even worse of a situation. He has no stake in the game, from a playing or fan perspective and I find it very sneering, and classist. 

 

 It's the constant virtue signalling about fans and supporting a football club that significantly irks me. Sportswashing is painting a putrid regime in a positive light to garner positive attention for said regime in Western societies, I'm not ignorant to that. I know how shocking KSA is with it's laws, practices, geopolitics et cetera. That they bought my football club and are going to bankroll it doesn't make me blind to that, nor will I argue otherwise. "The Saudis do/did x." I'm just like, "aye, they do. Not nice are they". 

 

It's the looking down the nose at Newcastle fans since the takeover went through. The celebrations outside SJP on October 7 were celebrations of Ashley going. No matter who was coming in, that was going to be celebrated. But I've seen that being painted as celebrating KSA and now there's the perpetuation that we're all sportswashed fools to these white collar paywall journalists, some of whom have written contradictory stuff on Saudi money in the past. Just fuck off. The suggestion that fans should walk away from supporting they club they always have done. Fuck off. Saying that they would if it was them. Utter virtue signalling nonsense, far easier said than done.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by HaydnNUFC

[ilikenewcastle]

34 minutes ago, ManDoon said:

My issue with Delaney and his ilk is they happily sucked the trough dry of the blood money that has gone through the PL. The Russian WC was arguably the biggest sports washing excercise in history imo. He was there. And I understand the “it’s his job” but the same can be said of Howe, and for fans it’s even worse of a situation. He has no stake in the game, from a playing or fan perspective and I find it very sneering, and classist. 

The likes of Delaney are best ignored. His hypocrisy and double standards have been pointed out, he's really no better than the likes of talksport for baiting fans into a reaction. He's just a Gabby Agbonlahor for the chattering classes.

[TRon]

10 minutes ago, triggs said:

This thread is for discussing the owners of the club. You can ignore this thread if you wish, just as I ignore most of the football related threads

 

I know I can ignore it, but then again I can also participate in it as an actual supporter of Newcastle United, the team of my city where I still live today.

[relámpago blanco]

If UK citizens have a problem with Saudi Arabia then they should leave the country as we are a major supplier of arms to them.  As we all know.  The same as the US is.

[triggs]

1 minute ago, relámpago blanco said:

If UK citizens have a problem with Saudi Arabia then they should leave the country as we are a major supplier of arms to them.  As we all know.  The same as the US is.

Fortunately the UK is a democracy so you don't have to leave if you disagree with the government's policies

[Superior Acuña]

1 minute ago, relámpago blanco said:

If UK citizens have a problem with Saudi Arabia then they should leave the country as we are a major supplier of arms to them.  As we all know.  The same as the US is.

You should leave the country if you don’t like government policy, sounds like a good way for healthy democracy to function   
 

(or hopefully this was sarcastic and I’m missing it as a reply)

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

People in the replies asking exactly what he wants Howe to say. He wants him to resign ?

 

 

[Joey Linton]

1 minute ago, WarrenBartonCentrePartin said:

People in the replies asking exactly what he wants Howe to say. He wants him to resign ?

 

 

Of course he wants him to resign. But it's not because of the executions. 

[HaydnNUFC]

Understand if this is whataboutery™  but where is the fewm at Guardiola and where are the questions being posed to him about the UAE? He's been at Man City for nigh on 6 years and I can't remember a single question about what goes on in the UAE being asked being put to him.

[triggs]

4 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

Understand if this is whataboutery™  but where is the fewm at Guardiola and where are the questions being posed to him about the UAE? He's been at Man City for nigh on 6 years and I can't remember a single question about what goes on in the UAE being asked being put to him.

He seems untouchable for some reason. So much so that he seems to think the Man City owners aren't even dodgy

[Wullie]

8 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

Understand if this is whataboutery™  but where is the fewm at Guardiola and where are the questions being posed to him about the UAE? He's been at Man City for nigh on 6 years and I can't remember a single question about what goes on in the UAE being asked being put to him.

He got quite a lot of flak for a brief period after he wore a ribbon in support of Catalan political prisoners, being asked about the same in UAE.

[Fantail Breeze]

3 minutes ago, Wullie said:

He got quite a lot of flak for a brief period after he wore a ribbon in support of Catalan political prisoners, being asked about the same in UAE.

 

Sort of proves the point like. A brief bit of flack vs it being mentioned every five seconds relentlessly for us.

 

Man City as a club tend to get praised at every opportunity.

 

I have no problem with it being a topic of conversation, it’s a very important one. But lets at least be consistent with our finger pointing.

[HaydnNUFC]

5 minutes ago, Wullie said:

He got quite a lot of flak for a brief period after he wore a ribbon in support of Catalan political prisoners, being asked about the same in UAE.

 

Fair enough. Only found a handful of articles from 2018. Nowt since. And on Glendenning, I suppose him being a mackem plays a part in this, given he's not once had a go at Guardiola for working at Man City but is going all out on Howe.

 

https://twitter.com/search?q=Guardiola OR Pep OR UAE OR Man City from%3Abglendenning&src=typed_query&f=live

[triggs]

Tbf Tariq Panja and Miguel Delaney have been writing about City for years

[HaydnNUFC]

Just now, triggs said:

Tbf Tariq Panja and Miguel Delaney have been writing about City for years

 

I know. Just the latest hot take in this topic from the worst website ever was from Glendenning.

[Joey Linton]

4 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

And on Glendenning, I suppose him being a mackem plays a part in this, given he's not once had a go at Guardiola for working at Man City but is going all out on Howe.

If we were 20th in the table he'd not be suggesting Howe should quit. 

[dave s]

everyone just picks up on nufc and calls it sportswashing as it’s news worthy, and topical. fact is they should be popping at the government from when teresa welcomed them with open arms as part of the vision 2030 initiative to wash everything they have here in uk 

 

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/65-billion-investment-in-britain-unlocked-by-saudi-crown-prince-1.711508

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-companies-to-benefit-from-uk-saudi-trade

 

 

[TheInfiniteOdyssey]

I've been struggling with this more have to admit, there's always the gnawing feeling that everything comes with a caveat.

 

I will say that due to the nature of football's tribalism, it has produced and will continue to produce rhetoric that is profoundly insincere on the topic. Be it our fans who seem obliged to defend the Saudi justice system, despite (likely) having no interest and any genuine belief in what they're saying, or fans from other clubs that have now suddenly developed a forensic interest in Saudi transgressions since we became the richest club in the world.

 

I envisage the majority of fans from other clubs would no doubt have had a some passive-like opposition to Saudi crimes and lack of conformity to western freedoms before we were taken over, yet now post-takeover, that lens has widened and magnified, likely because their opposition now needs to be real and immediate, because it threatens the status of the clubs they support. I think that's to be expected.

 

What is difficult to understand and what provokes a natural tribalistic streak in me personally, is the apparent double-standards of the media, who have effectively normalized this scenario through years of covering Chelsea and Man City's successes with very little introspection. The latter has had some, but the overriding cultural touchstones that the media immortalized in the public's conscious remain Aguero's winner, Pep's style of football, than anything else.

 

Even a cursory look at any Chelsea - Newcastle match report from the last decade or so, seems to completely omit Abramovich's influence on why the fixture was so hopelessly imbalanced on the pitch (for the most part). There's was no genuine will to examine it, until now, when a recently transformed geopolitical context demands it. 

 

 

[Thiago]

Here's the sad truth - we're all hypocrites. 

 

Glendennig works for Talksport. They're owned by Rupert Murdoch. Is that aspiring to journalistic integrity? When Murdoch took over Colin Murray resigned out of principle, and yet there was Glendennig to fill the void and cash the cheque. At least I was supporting this team when it was owned by Sir John Hall and not PIF. He took a job knowing who he was climbing into bed with. 

 

Delaney's newspaper is owned by Saudi and Russian money. And yet, apparently it's all good because he writes a few critical op-eds now and again. He - along with his colleagues - will also pitch up at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge, and play in these media games. Is that journalistic integrity? I remember learning that you're not supposed to take any gifts to maintain your objectivity. 

 

Did they ask Steve Bruce or Rafa Benitez what he thought about Mike Ashley running sweat shops? 

 

I will never ever attempt to justify Saudi Arabia, its regime, or its human rights atrocities. We need that conversation, we need it regularly, and we need to have our decision makers involved to find a genuine solution because the horse has escaped the paddock here. Saudi and countries like it are involved in business and we need to figure out what we as a country do about that and accept. 

 

What I'm fast tiring of is this performative bullshit. You're not Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when you ask Eddie Howe why he took a job. He took the job the same reason you did, because you had bills to pay and you didn't feel it was your responsibility. 

[Comegetasample]

36 minutes ago, WarrenBartonCentrePartin said:

People in the replies asking exactly what he wants Howe to say. He wants him to resign ?

 

 

 

He's a complete wanker.

 

Disingenuous centrist bullshit spouts from his twitter and the Guardian footy podcast almost daily, i struggle to listen to it now, the pearl clutching and naval gazing is almost too much.

 

I can say with a real feeling of certainty that he DOES NOT care about the people in Yemen or any other victims of oppression, be that at the hands of the Saudis or any other totalitarian state. He just cares that it's US, and the energy he (and alot of the other mainstream journos) give to it in comparison to other injustices only solidifies my belief.

 

They all covered the Russian world cup, seemingly had no problem with Chelsea or City and will cover the Qatar world cup. They ask ordinary working class football fans to be the barometer of morality and a litmus test for geopolitics. They will accuse you of "whataboutery" if you apply any form of scrutiny to their records or if you ask them to do the same and they'll gaslight you and say your doing the Saudis work when your defending your fellow fans or club. 

 

We had a choice at the last election with regards to football, one was mandated fan ownership of football clubs, subsidized tickets and a ceasing of arms sales and diplomatic closeness with  Saudi Arabia. The country, and dare i say most of these journos, voted for what we have right now, they haven't got a fucking leg to stand on. 

 

I can't vote for who owns my football club but i can support it no matter what, and i refuse to let middle class journos who live in London tell me where my morality should start and end when they refuse to apply the same scrutiny to The Premier League or the British Government. 

 

 

 

[Yorkie]

@TheInfiniteOdyssey @Thiago 

 

Tbf I don't blame any journalist for asking Howe the question. It's not a bad thing that Saudi Arabia's horrors are being revealed, scrutinised and condemned; meanwhile, if Eddie Howe publicly expresses a view then that's instantly a story in itself. 

 

As for Glendenning, he's a journalist on Twitter on the wind up. 

[Stottie]

The Guardian has regularly defended Tony Blair over Iraq and hundreds of thousands dead, but couldn't lay into Corbyn hard enough over perceived anti-Semitism.

Their refusal to support Corbyn, especially in 2017 led to the current shitshow of a hard Brexit (=Russian foreign policy) and tens of thousands of extra deaths from Covid.

This happened because the center left is just as divisive and intolerant as the far left.

 

[OverThere]

Is it true that he (Glendinning) is a Mackem and this is the true source of his "outrage"

 

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by OverThere

[Sima]

8 minutes ago, OverThere said:

Is it true that he (Glendinning) is a Mackem and this is the true source of his "outrage"

 

 

 

He’s just a Fleet Street Exile[insertnumbers]. If we were still rooted to the bottom of the table winless he would barely give a fuck.

[leffe186]

6 hours ago, Thiago said:

Here's the sad truth - we're all hypocrites. 

 

Glendennig works for Talksport. They're owned by Rupert Murdoch. Is that aspiring to journalistic integrity? When Murdoch took over Colin Murray resigned out of principle, and yet there was Glendennig to fill the void and cash the cheque. At least I was supporting this team when it was owned by Sir John Hall and not PIF. He took a job knowing who he was climbing into bed with. 

 

Delaney's newspaper is owned by Saudi and Russian money. And yet, apparently it's all good because he writes a few critical op-eds now and again. He - along with his colleagues - will also pitch up at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge, and play in these media games. Is that journalistic integrity? I remember learning that you're not supposed to take any gifts to maintain your objectivity. 

 

Did they ask Steve Bruce or Rafa Benitez what he thought about Mike Ashley running sweat shops? 

 

I will never ever attempt to justify Saudi Arabia, its regime, or its human rights atrocities. We need that conversation, we need it regularly, and we need to have our decision makers involved to find a genuine solution because the horse has escaped the paddock here. Saudi and countries like it are involved in business and we need to figure out what we as a country do about that and accept. 

 

What I'm fast tiring of is this performative bullshit. You're not Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when you ask Eddie Howe why he took a job. He took the job the same reason you did, because you had bills to pay and you didn't feel it was your responsibility. 

Bravo. Although I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, we’re not all hypocrites. I’ve been done with this whole thing for a while now, and it sounds like Triggs is too.

 

You really do have a choice. Of course I’ll always be a Spurs fan at heart and when I look at the scores I’ll be happy when we win and sad when we lose, but I’m out for the most part. Barely even watch football any more. My heart’s broken.

 

Not trying to be holier-than-thou, honestly, just it seems like sometimes people act like they don’t have a choice. You don’t have a choice whether to support Newcastle in your heart or not, but you do have a choice in what you do about it.