October 2021 risks going down in football history for a long time due to a deal in the English Premier League. After 14 years at the head of Newcastle, businessman Mike Ashley for 300 million pounds agreed to cede the club to the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Fund, which was created back in 1971 to support projects of strategic importance to the national economy.
Newcastle is not the first club to be bought by Saudi Arabian businessmen. There are also PSG, Man City and many others. Those teams became more successful after such owners change. Will it work the same way for Newcastle? You can make bets for future or bet live on 22Bet on Newcastle results.
Almost immediately after the deal was approved by the leadership of the Premier League, a number of human rights organizations criticized the bosses of English football. In particular, Amnesty International called on the Premier League to reconsider its decision, because the new owners of Newcastle have problems with respect to human rights, and the executive director of the organization Sasha Deshmuk stressed that the Saudis should not be able to “engage in the development of English football simply because that they have bottomless pockets. ”
In fact, the story of the acquisition of Newcastle by the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Fund has been going on since last year. Then the deal fell through literally at the last moment, when the investor formally withdrew his offer. In reality, reporters reported that the Premier League strongly opposed the transfer of rights to Newcastle to Saudi Arabian owners due to copyright problems. The Premier League in the Gulf countries broadcasts the BeIN Sports channel, owned by Qatar investors.
After the authorities of Saudi Arabia imposed a number of sectoral sanctions on this state, the Saudis themselves were accused of the fact that on the territory of their country there is actually an illegal show of submarine fights, which in its pure form is piracy. Then the government of Saudi Arabia even had to come up with an official refutation of such accusations, and over time the situation was resolved, and now there are no problems in this area.
Another point that a year ago slowed down the takeover of Newcastle by multibillionaires from Saudi Arabia is that the Premier League suspected that the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Fund is directly connected with the state structures of the country. For this reason, the deal could not be completed, but now, reportedly, the leadership of the Premier League has arranged guarantees provided by investors that they are not directly related to state authorities and are a separate organization making decisions without the participation of Saudi Arabian officials.
True, a key figure in the Saudi Sovereign Fund is the 36-year-old Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the son of King Salman, the country’s second deputy prime minister and defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. According to New York Times sources in American intelligence, it was this man who gave the order to lure and subsequently eliminate the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who criticized the prince’s policies. It is for the latest crime that the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Fund, headed by Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, is actively condemned by international human rights organizations.
