Lewis Railton
On the 7th October, the long awaited takeover of Newcastle United FC took place. Outside St James’ Park, thousands of football fans gathered; chanting and singing “we’ve got our club back”, but in fact they have never been so unaffiliated with the club they love.
Former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley had most certainly overstayed his welcome as top of the hierarchy for the North East “sleeping giants”. For a club with such a large fanbase of demanding fans, fighting with relegation to the Championship certainly did not make the fans content; alongside a dull playing style leaving fans bored to sleep in the stands; other than their very own diamond in the rough, Allan Saint-Maximin. As shown by the joy and relief on the fans' faces on the night the news was broken to the world, the end of multi-millionaire Mike Ashley’s reign was welcomed by every fan in black and white. The Geordies were blindsided by the prospect of the sudden influx of cash once the new owners were announced, those being a consortium involving PCP Capital Partners, RB Sports & Media, and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.
With a truly horrifying past with breaches of human rights, and a catalogue of offences carried out by the Saudi Regime; there was opposition to this outside of the city of Newcastle. Fans of fellow Premier League club Crystal Palace made their displeasure known by displaying a banner at their home ground Selhurst Park where they faced Newcastle, the first game in the new era. On a picture of a clipboard under the headline 'Premier League Owners Test' were listed the words 'Terrorism, beheading, civil rights abuses, murder, censorship and persecution'. However with the takeover being completed, the debate will continue as to whether the takeover could have or even should have been blocked by the Premier League as a result of the vastly extreme allegations thrown at the Saudi Regime.
However once this honeymoon period is over for the thousands of Geordies still celebrating the end of Mike Ashley’s reign, they still find themselves joint-bottom of the Premier League, still trying to secure their first win of the campaign after 11 games this season. Changes have already been made to secure safety in the Premier League this season, and to build on the new ownership’s plan to “secure Champions League qualification within 5 years”, by appointing Eddie Howe as successor to local lad Steve Bruce, who the new owners deemed not fit to carry Newcastle to safety after a 27.4% win percentage and a winless start to the 2021/22 campaign. Despite a member of Newcastle’s board of directors, Amanda Staveley, promising new manager Eddie Howe a “£200 million war chest” to spend over the next 3 seasons, the prospect of relegation could be very detrimental to the long term ambitions and goals of the new Saudi owners.
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