NEWCASTLE UNITED: A DEAL PAID WITH THE BLOOD OF INNOCENTS
Together for Justice organization condemns in the strongest terms the Saudi Investment Fund’s acquisition of Newcastle United, despite all appeals and human rights demands to cancel the deal due to the significant negative role it will play in whitewashing the image of the Saudi dictatorial regime.
After more than a year of negotiations, the Saudi regime succeeded in completing a deal to own about 80% of the shares of the English club competing in the Premier League. This deal faced many obstacles due to the widespread criticism of the club and officials in the English Football Association for agreeing to the presence of a representative of a tyrannical regime such as the Saudi regime, which fuels wars in the region, and has no tolerance, unlike football, the popular sport first in the world.
The Premier League claimed in July that the Saudi group that applied to buy the club had not passed the manager and owner test being conducted by the Premier League, but earlier this week it was officially announced that a Saudi-led consortium had won the deal after successfully passing all the tests.
The consortium consists of the Public Investment Fund, PCB Capital Partners and the British brothers David and Simon Rubin.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund, is completely subject to the controls of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, who rules it with repression, tyranny and dictatorship, without tolerance or democracy.
The Sovereign Fund is supposed to include the people’s money, but various reports confirmed that bin Salman spends those funds on his personal desires, in addition to using it to finance projects related to his vision of diversifying the economy, which reports and analyzes said his projects are doomed to failure due to the economic crisis the country is suffering, and instead of spending this money on the people, the regime demands austerity, and money is wasted on projects that steal their lives and lands, such as the Neom project, which threatens the Al-Huwaitat tribe with forced displacement.
This deal confirms that commercial and economic interests are above human rights. It seems that human rights are not included in the decision-makers in the world, who are still helping this dictatorial regime, run by a murderer, whom international and intelligence reports have proven that his hands are stained with the hands of the journalist Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who did not commit any crime except criticizing the policies of this regime.
On the other hand, we appeal to the Newcastle United fans to pressure the officials to cancel this deal. The broadcasting rights and the purchase of distinguished players to win championships is not worth the blood of the innocent people killed by Saudi forces in Yemen, nor a day of the life of opponents and activists who are dying in prisons of the Saudi regime.
Finally, we warn the masses that dictatorial regimes will never bring good, and that being sports fans who have nothing to do with politics will not prevent them from being victims of the brutality of these regimes, and what happened to the fans of the Egyptian Al-Ahly club in the 2012 Port Said massacre, or the fans of the Egyptian club Zamalek in the 2015 Air Defense Stadium massacre is proof of that.
The fans of these clubs were nothing but ordinary fans who went to attend the football matches of their favorite club, but the dictatorial regime that rules Egypt killed them without discrimination, because its interest was to get rid of them.
