Sportswashing at Newcastle United is a myth – Whilst this is more Brainwashing | OneFootball

Sportswashing and Newcastle United were recently back in the headlines.

Which tells you one thing for sure.

Newcastle United doing the business on the pitch!

Sure enough, Sportswashing and Newcastle United getting put into these type of headlines and negative takes, when Eddie Howe and his players won a trophy in March 2025.

Then the same again when in late May 2025, NUFC confirmed their place in next season’s Champions League.

To me, it is more a clear case of Brainwashing, if indeed anybody still believes that what is happening at Newcastle United is Sportswashing.

Brainwashed by media pushing the same old lines that after nearly four years of Saudi Arabia PIF majority ownership have been shown to be clearly without foundation.

If it was/is Sportswashing, they aren’t doing a very good job of it!

The Saudi Arabia PIF are actually doing the complete opposite, there are pretty much next to no attempts to push visible connections between Newcastle United and Saudi Arabia. Even with this unbelievable success that Eddie Howe delivered in the past five months, unless you already knew about who owned NUFC, what would have recently made aware of that fact?

Apart from Yasir Al-Rumayyan attending the League Cup final in March and the final game of the season at St James’ Park in May, what else would make you think of the connection with Saudi Arabia? The thing is, if the Chairman of any football club didn’t attend a cup final, or the moment of qualifying for the Champions League, wouldn’t that be the most bizarre thing???

It happens every time with these Newcastle United Sportswashing tales, so much of the media just lazily repeating it, determined to try and prevent NUFC fans properly celebrated the end of that VERY long wait for silverware.

However, what is really really laughable about Sportswashing and Newcastle United, is that it doesn’t even exist.

Let me explain.

For Sportswashing and Newcastle United to be a connected thing, you have to first believe that Saudi Arabia is desperate for approval, especially from those in the West.

This simply isn’t the case.

Those who are in control in Saudi Arabia and indeed many other similar states / countries, do not crave the approval of those in the UK, USA, or wherever.

They don’t need approval, they already get respect and influence where the West is concerned, because of what they can offer. Saudi Arabia has oil, wealth and is a key strategic partner (of the West) in that part of the World. When those who wield power in Saudi Arabia travel to the West, that is why they are met by Presidents, Prime Ministers and Royalty.

They don’t care what other people in other countries, whether they be politicians or the general public, think about how they run things in Saudi Arabia (or Qatar, or wherever).

The idea that buying Newcastle United has been all about ‘Sportswashing’, to try and deflect from human rights issues and so on in Saudi Arabia, just doesn’t really make any sense, especially I would say with what has happened in other areas of business and sport with Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia haven’t ended up hosting the World Cup in 2034 due to getting the approval of the west, or any other such nonsense, they have simply used their power/money to get what they wanted. They want the prestige and long-term financial (and other rewards) of hosting that World Cup, the biggest tournament on the planet. They want to grow their long-term economy and diversify it. Whilst as we saw with Qatar, by hosting the World Cup and inviting all the media from around the World, it brings much greater scrutiny on human rights and other issues, rather than deflecting from them.

The Saudi Arabia PIF haven’t bought a controlling interest in Newcastle United for Sportswashing purposes. They have done it for the reason(s) why pretty much everybody else buys Premier League clubs.

A combination of some or all of these reasons – money, power, prestige, influence.

As to who should and shouldn’t be allowed to own Premier League clubs, well, that is a completely different question. The truth is that the Premier League is like the Wild West, anything goes, seemingly anybody can and will buy up Premier League clubs.

These are all valid questions and topics of conversation on who should be allowed to buy Premier League clubs BUT Newcastle United and the Saudi Arabia PIF involvement has nothing to do with Sportswashing. Rather, just like everybody else, it is some or all of money, power, prestige and influence that has driven their desire to make Newcastle United one of their numerous global investments.

The idea that Saudi Arabia PIF wouldn’t care about losing fortunes on Newcastle United just so long as they get some Sportswashing payback is simply ludicrous.

The truth is, Saudi Arabia PIF picked up one of the bargains of this millennium when taking control of Newcastle United.

Look at the valuations thrown about regarding Man Utd and Liverpool, similar story with Tottenham, Arsenal and look at what Man City’s valuation has now reached.

Maybe the best one to look at though is Chelsea. I don’t think anybody would argue that the US investors are there for any other major reason than eventually to make money on their investment. They paid £2.5 billion to buy the club and part of the arrangement was a commitment to spend another £1.75 billion, a total investment of at least £4.25 billion! With them clearly thinking at some time in the future they will sell Chelsea for far more than that.

Then you have Saudi Arabia PIF and the Reuben family together investing £305m to buy Newcastle United and around £357m extra invested in NUFC since then. With Saudi PIF owning 85% of Newcastle United and the Reuben family the other 15%, once the pretence of Amanda Staveley having a stake in the club was dispensed with, Companies House updates showing that (the Reubens) having paid for her 10% ‘stake’ when buying the club, that money was simply refunded to the Reubens by Amanda Staveley when she left the club.

What the Reubens and Saudi Arabia PIF have paid so far for Newcastle United is…Peanuts! Look at Everton, their new owners taking on a total shambles and a new stadium to pay off.

The Reuben family are one of the richest families in the UK (reports variously have them ranked first or second, year to year), I don’t think they get involved in many investment projects where they are expecting not to make a lot of money, never mind supposedly expecting to lose it!

Just over two years ago, when still an NUFC Director, Amanda Staveley was speaking at the FT Business of Football Summit in Mayfair, London – Thursday 2 March 2023:

“We tried to buy Liverpool.

“When we walked into a Newcastle United game we said why spend X Billion when you can spend three hundred and some million and put in….I think we have put in two hundred plus to date of new money since we bought the club.

“We had a particular business plan, based on a five, ten, fifteen year timeline.

“Critical to that plan was making sure we had the right partners.

“So making sure (Saudi Arabia) PIF, who are very long-term investors.

“In the last year it’s extraordinary…

“Hoping potentially there might be the chance of Champions League.

“I love the valuations that are reflecting in Chelsea….because it makes our valuation look very compelling.

“We bought the club at under two times revenue.

“When you are looking at five to seven times revenue, that is a lot of money.”

Basically, you don’t need to be a top Economist to understand that Saudi Arabia PIF and their partners have bought an absolute bargain.

There are various ways of valuing businesses and Amanda Staveley talks of them buying Newcastle United for less than two times what the annual revenues are.

With Newcastle United winning a trophy, set for a second season of Champions League football in a three year period, growing revenues massively, the value of the playing squad increasing by crazy numbers. Compared to what Eddie Howe and NUFC paid for these players, imagine the value now if for some bizarre reason Newcastle were prepared to sell Isak, Gordon, Tonali, Botman, Elanga, Livramento, Bruno, Hall and others? The value of just the 11 most valuable Newcastle United players now, easily exceeds the total investment (original buying price of club and then additional investment they’ve put in) of the Saudi Arabia PIF and the Reuben family.

Clearly, already they could sell it for far far more than the £657m or so that has been invested so far. In the future, who knows just how many times more than that, they could sell NUFC for, if / when they choose to.

Back in 2022, as we were coming up to the first anniversary of the Saudi Arabia PIF led takeover of Newcastle United, the Newcastle United Chairman (and Governor of Saudi Arabia PIF and Saudi Arabia Government Minister) Yasir Al-Rumayyan was saying exactly this…

Yasir Al-Rumayyan – 4 October 2022:

“We bought the whole club (Newcastle United) for £305m, instead of only having 30 per cent in another club (Manchester United) for £700m.

“You can see Chelsea was sold for $3.5bn (£2.5bn).

“So, my potential now is to go from £305m to at least $3.5bn (£2.5bn).

“Football of course is one of the most important sports there is, whether domestically (in Saudi Arabia) or abroad.

“It is the number one sport in the world and why the English Premier League?

“Well, because it is the best league in the world, no other league competes with it.

“There are 20 teams, three are relegated, three are promoted, the advantage of the Premier League is that any of the 20 teams can beat the best team in the league.

“When we looked at it, we looked at it from a financial perspective.

“By the way, it wasn’t the first offer we got regarding a football team. We looked in Italy, France and the UK as well.

“In the UK there was a team (Manchester United) that approached us on the basis that we take 30 per cent of the ownership and (on the condition that) we don’t interfere at all in terms of managing the club, for £700m.

“Then we bought Newcastle, who offered us 100 per cent of the ownership…

“Then came the Reuben family, who are one of the biggest property investors (in the UK), saying that, ‘We would like to come with you’, and these are one of the biggest investors in (the City of) Newcastle (Upon Tyne).”

The idea that the Saudi Arabia PIF simply see Newcastle United as a Sportswashing project, a money no object exercise to connect themselves to a top Premier League football club, to deflect criticism from what happens in Saudi Arabia…

Maybe this cunning deflection involves deliberately running the club as a bit of a shambles at the moment, the transfer market shambles this summer, the no rush to have a new CEO and Sporting Director in place, no easy wins of having a Saudi sponsor for the training ground or numerous other sponsorship opportunities they could use and be pumping in extra money to be spent, no selling the NUFC women’s team to themselves as Chelsea, Villa and now Everton are doing.

The idea that Newcastle United is seen some sparkling jewel to be given the highest Sportswashing priority by the regime in Saudi Arabia. Reality is that it more feels like Newcastle United is just one of the hundreds/thousands of investments the Saudis have made, as they look to diversify their future business interests.

Indeed, Newcastle United feels currently like it is a Saudi Arabia PIF business investment that they have pretty much forgotten about.