When the takeover of Newcastle United took place in October 2021, while many supporters were delighted, there were others, who saw the takeover in much darker terms. Indeed, it was noted – that the fiancée of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi who had been so brutally murdered in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018, was clearly heartbroken. – Hatice Cengiz commented that it was “a real shame for Newcastle and for English football” that the club was now in the hands of “the person responsible for the murder of Jamal.”
Meanwhile, Sacha Deshmukh, the CEO of Amnesty International UK, similarly described the deal – by saying that it “represented a clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human rights record with the glamour of top-flight football.” –
Deshmukh went on to note: “Saudi ownership of St James’ Park was always as much about image management for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his government, as it was about football”.
Sarath Ganji
Writing in 2023, Sarath Ganji noted that the 2022 Winter Olympics in China resembled political confrontation with some sports going on somewhere on the side. As many as ten governments, including those of Australia, Canada, India, the UK and the United States refused to send any officials to the games, but this was only a token opposition to the practices of the Chinese Communist Party and their brutal oppression of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang province as these countries did however send athletes.
Ganji goes on to note that football in particular has enabled officials and governments to hide cash, within the complicated business activities and value chains that surround the sport. Indeed “emerging powers prominently involved include the gulf monarchies of Qatar, Saudi Arabia on the United Arab Emirates. Each of these regimes surface form a’ blemished brand’ going to its patrimonial politics and poor human rights record all three are deeply invested in global sports leveraging their hydrocarbon wealth and seeking to diversify beyond their traditional mainstay of collecting oil and gas rents. Sports seemingly quick access to prestige and command worldwide interest and attention.”
Ganji explains that football can be a useful tool for manipulating information: “Autocratic regimes can with relative ease, leverage football to get access to an array of platforms ranging from iconic athletes and historic clubs to EST federations and even western governments. The sport’s high profile and mass appeal put regimes in touch with the personal ‘infospheres’ of people all over the world – people who, by dint of the interest in football become audiences for regime messaging.”
Joseph Nye
The extent to which the Saudis are using the ownership of Newcastle United and other sportswashing ventures is underlined in James Montague’s book ‘Engulfed’. He notes that the Saudis had been trying to harness the power of attraction for some time without positive outcomes, before they hit on using sports. The Saudis have spent as much as $70 billion since the 1970s exporting Wahhabism around the world, using mosque building programmes, aid projects and setting up hardline Islamic schools. Montague argues that this soft power activity then led directly to the rise of Radical Islamism, which in turn fuelled Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Montague also quotes Professor Joseph Nye from Harvard University, who wrote in his 2004 book ‘Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics’:
“The soft power of Wahhabism has not proved to be a resource that the Saudi government could control or use to obtain favourable outcomes. Instead it has been like a sorcerer’s apprentice that has come back to bedevil its original creator”.
When James Montague met Professor Nye in his office at Harvard University Nye said:
“Osama Bin Laden attracted Muslims, extremist Muslims, to attack the World Trade Center. He didn’t put a gun to their head, he didn’t pay them, which would have been hard power. He attracted them with this bizarre version of Islam and they did it because they were attracted to his message. Soft power can be used for very bad purpose.”
Comment
Whether reading the words of Hatice Cengiz, Sacha Desmukh, Sarath Ganji or Joseph Nye, there seems no point in trying to sugarcoat it. The Saudi regime, held responsible for multiple very serious human rights violations have been attempting to use their soft power for decades and are currently using sports, including their majority ownership of Newcastle United to sportswash their image. This again raises pertinent questions in North East England as to what the appropriate response to the Saudi PIF majority ownership of Newcastle United should be.
Sportswashing has been used by many cruel and brutal regimes and leaders in various guises over the years. It is used by them for a variety of reasons: to impress the people of their country, to deflect attention away from they are really doing and to attempt to present a false and unrealistically sanitised version of themselves. It is surely as important as ever that it is called out for what it truly is and that those perpetrating it are not allowed to use sport, with its ethos of fair play, in order to increase the suffering of innocent and often very frightened people.
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