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In a move that rocked the Premier League late last week, former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley made a stunning £ 300million + sale from the club to a consortium backed in part by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). This sparked an intense backlash from many corners of the footballing world over Saudi Arabia’s appalling record of human rights abuses, as well as allegations that the Middle Eastern nation is using its purchase of Newcastle for “sports wash” – investing a huge amount of money in a popular sports team in order to rehabilitate the nation’s reputation.
It’s a similar move to that taken by Abu Dhabi when its consortium bought Manchester City from Thaksin Shinawatra in 2008, or Qatar, which bought PSG three years later. The new owners expect to shell out money at Newcastle in an attempt to lift them, much like what happened with City and Chelsea, towards the fight for lasting Premier League titles.
But according to Keith Patterson of Newcastle Consortium Supporters Ltd, a prominent Newcastle United fan club, it was almost Tottenham Hotspur who sold to the Saudis in 2019.
Patterson, in an interview with Shields Gazzette in November 2020, claimed he knew from an insider that ENIC and Daniel Levy were at one point in talks to sell the club to a similar consortium of Saudi investors for 2, £ 5 billion plus an additional £ 1 billion on top of that. – on the fees a few months before the first deal to buy Newcastle was made, but Tottenham’s offer was ultimately rejected.
“Tottenham Hotspur, in a failed negotiation in March 2019, approached investors in the region we’re talking about – two months before the Newcastle deal was struck – to buy the football club for £ 2.5bn sterling, with an additional £ 1 billion in additions.
“The deal was presented to investors in Saudi Arabia, by a negotiator named Eldridge Investments, and rejected.
“The whole deal is worth £ 3.5 billion – Newcastle was to be sold for a tenth of that price. I got the exact same information from three different credible sources.
– Ken Patterson, Newcastle Consortium Supporters Ltd.
It is not very clear from the comments how far Tottenham was with the Saudis regarding this potential sale. Patterson’s reveal is used in the interview to make a point – Spurs were one of two clubs that opposed Newcastle’s initial sale in 2019, which ultimately collapsed the first time around due to concerns about Saudi support for football piracy via the beoutQ service.
That Spurs themselves allegedly tried to sell the club to the same group of investors is apparently quite hypocritical, but some context is missing – if Spurs made a pitch to the PIF consortium that went nowhere, then it’s pretty disgusting, but not as bad as if, hypothetically, the talks went much further before they fell apart. Patterson appears in the interview as very defensive, bordering on salty, about the objection to the Newcastle sale, so that context seems like a remarkable piece of the puzzle that his comments lack.
Rumors that Tottenham were trying to sell the club (or be approached to do so) have surfaced several times over the years – remember Cain Hoy in 2014? I vaguely remember unsubstantiated or unfounded rumors a few years ago that Spurs were once again in talks with an anonymous investor group about a possible sale, but if it was the Saudis it was definitely pretty quiet.
Patterson’s Shield Gazzette interview is now almost a year old and I missed it the first time she appeared, but her comments have taken on new relevance with the recent Newcastle sale. Assuming for a moment that Patterson’s claims are correct (and honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out that they are), I find the idea of being owned by a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund to be correct. unequivocally rude. Selling to the nation of Saudi Arabia with its history of human rights abuses is even more incorrigible. That said, ENIC has never hidden the fact that his purchase of Spurs in 2001 was an investment and that they would eventually cash in, and Spurs have improved their status and their club’s wealth to the point that the only ones who can possibly afford to buy Tottenham are either absurdly wealthy individuals like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, consortia of barely less wealthy groups, or oil-rich nations.
There is much to criticize over Mike Ashley and Newcastle’s choice to sell to a group of investors so intrinsically linked to Mohammad Bin Salman and the government of Saudi Arabia – state sanctioned discrimination and regressive laws who subject women to the murder of journalist Jamal Kashoggi three years ago in what has been strongly suggested to be an MBS-commissioned hit. Many Newcastle supporters are currently trying to close the circle of ecstasy over the end of Mike Ashley’s disastrous ownership and unease over the moral and ethical implications of a regime like Saudi Arabia which now controls their football club beloved. These are not easy things to manage.
However, it is sobering to think that in another parallel universe it is the Tottenham fans who should tackle these issues and decide how important the owners of a football club are to their happiness and opinions. on the club. And that raises this terrifying question – if ENIC were to ever sell, who would it be, how ethically acceptable are they, and what sort of moral contortions would be needed to make it all feel right?
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