With such a united front of support for the takeover, however surprising, it is more useful to understand than condemn
The eruption of protest in the north-east at the collapse of the Saudi Arabian bid to buy Newcastle United has come as a shock to those for whom the prospect of Saudi ownership provoked revulsion. As it turned out, the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test did not bar the Saudis owing to the principal reason for that international revulsion, the murder of the journalist
Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
After that murder, the distinguished reporter on
Middle East affairs Patrick Cockburn wrote in the Independent that however appalling that atrocity was, it was “by no means the worst act carried out by
Saudi Arabia since 2015”. He did not have in mind the one issue that did ultimately become a deal‑breaker at
Premier League HQ: the pirating of
Football TV rights by the Saudi platform BeoutQ from the Qatari company beIN.