Here are the most relevant aspects of the interview with John Hird from Newcastle United FC Fans against Sportswashing, conducted by Peter Sagar.
What is your background/back story?
I started supporting Newcastle in the late 1960s and my earliest memories are of winning the Fairs Cup. I still have a scrapbook and can remember my dad crying and laughing at the same time when we won the Fairs Cup. The first match I remember going to was against Arsenal. when Alan Ball was playing for them and I was in the Leazes End and I remember going to the homecomings after the Wembley cup defeats in 1974 and 1976.
With living in London, I was quite privileged to go to a lot of away matches even as far as Exeter! I was at a Newcastle match up at Arsenal on the day of the Hillsborough disaster and that was quite formative for me, with there being a Thatcherite campaign against the city of Liverpool and their fans and we campaigned against it and I helped to get Everton and Liverpool fans together in a joint campaign against compulsory ID cards.
That was probably when I started thinking politically about the game and around that time in the early 1990s, John Reid brought out a pamphlet called Reclaim the Game and we realised that the Premier League was the first step in taking football away from working class people.
How long have you campaigned for NUFCFAS?
Basically, since the 7th October 2021, the day of the takeover. I remember watching on TV and saw people dressed up in Arab garb and wondering what was happening. I had been involved in the campaign against Ashley and saw people delighted and celebrating the Saudis taking over. I came to realise that they had a very sophisticated PR exercise about how Newcastle was going to be the biggest club in the world and so on.
Through social media and Twitter, I first got in touch with people and straight away people were interested and wanted to get started opposing Saudi ownership.
What does NUFCFAS do?
The campaign has developed over time but the first thing to make clear is that we say that it is a nation state owning Newcastle United and we have won that argument. It is also one of the bloodiest, human rights abusing states in the world and this needs to be remembered. We need to use our leverage as fans to help Saudis who are dissidents or are persecuted.
The chairman of Newcastle United, Yasir al-Rumayyan, is a minister in the government which is jailing and executing opponents. Also, we oppose nation state ownership of football clubs generally as it could destroy football and football will cease to be a sport if nation states with their bottomless pockets and political agendas are allowed to dominate the game.
Can you tell me about successes?
We’ve had some debate about how to approach fans. At the time of the takeover I was quite taken aback about how people who I thought would be against the takeover weren’t. However, we have managed to get it on the agenda and we know that not every Newcastle fan is a pro Saudi regime supporter. I believe there is a silent majority who are uncomfortable about the ownership, so it is important that we have got it on the agenda that a group of Newcastle fans oppose the ownership situation.
Secondly, we set up a Twitter account with a few thousand people on it and a Facebook page and a website. Between us we’ve managed to become experts on both human rights and Saudi Arabia and football ownership and have got the word out that this is a big issue.
Also, we have not been intimidated. The Saudis threatened us over protesting outside St James’s Park, but we have done this two or three times now.
We’ve also managed to bring Saudi human rights activists to Newcastle for a face to face meeting with Newcastle council leader Karen Kilgour. This led to excellent publicity in NE Bylines who’ve been great all along but also articles on the BBC and in the Chronicle. We have been humbled to have people like Lina al-Hathloul and Manahel Otaibi’s sister involved.
Newcastle Labour council have been a great disappointment but the UCU among other trade unions and some councillors have fortunately got involved.
Can you tell me about your plans for the future? How do you see the situation at NUFC playing out?
We will continue the work as we’ve been doing. For example we have raised the issue of human rights with the Wor Flags fans group, who were interviewed by a German newspaper before the takeover and said they would put Saudi women on a flag display if they continued to be oppressed. We keep asking Wor Flags when they’re going to do this and remind them that they have said that they would express support for human rights in Saudi Arabia. This is our 5th season under Saudi state control. When are Wor Flags and other ‘official’ NUFC fan groups going to show some solidarity with the all too many victims of the club’s owners?
Some of the oppression in Saudi Arabia has gotten worse since the takeover. We want to talk directly to fans groups. Manahel Otaibi’s sister lives in Edinburgh and we would say if you’re concerned about human rights why not talk to the Saudi human rights activists? I would ask fans groups if there was anything they could do to help improve human rights in Saudi Arabia. Even just mentioning the name of Saudi women in prison would have an effect and as I said earlier the Newcastle chairman is in the Saudi government.
As for Newcastle United, Andrew Page has written an excellent piece about the management structure which is very complicated. The chairman of Newcastle United is involved in 20 other chairmanships including other sports and it seems that Newcastle United is simply not a priority for the Saudis. They are more interested in tennis, golf, boxing and the 2034 World Cup. It is also notable that the regime can’t afford to fund the Neom project, so how are they going to be able to fund the World Cup?
We also have thousands of Newcastle supporters walking round every day in Newcastle United tops which have Noon as a shirt sleeve sponsor. Noon is involved in modern day slavery. The Saudis will use Newcastle United to promote the World Cup and there are still families of workers who died building the stadiums in Qatar who have not had any compensation despite the fact that the competition made Qatar billions.
We don’t want to see the same thing happening with the Saudi World Cup in 2034.
As for the situation with Isak, it shows that the Saudi management is not on top of their job and I would recommend people to read Andrew Page’s article and read about the regime’s petty rivalries, the lack of democracy and how the Saudi regime is really run on patronage with no transparency.
It was mentioned in the Chronicle about somebody leaving the board and saying that there were no unforeseen circumstances afterwards. It says something when the story has to mention this just because somebody’s leaving the board and saying that they are safe!
What other initiatives are you involved in? Which other organisations do you work with?
Personally, I’m associated with the Irish Socialist Party and groups of socialists in Mexico, the Basque Country, Belgium and around the world campaigning internationally and I work in a Co-op teaching English.
NUFCFAS is going to cooperate with Equidem who work on workers’ rights issues in the Gulf and one key point they have raised is that we need a lot of spotlight on the building of the stadia in Saudi Arabia for the World Cup how we need to work with trade unions as the Saudi regime will use Newcastle United and the region, if we let them, to promote the World Cup 2034 in Saudi Arabia.
We would also like to say the eight points put to Newcastle City council by the Saudi human rights activists are a clear guide and checklist which North East political representatives should use to prevent the Saudi state using our region for sportswashing away their many crimes and human rights abuses. As Saudi activist Lina said if the club and for that matter the region are being used to sportswash the Saudi image, it really should be opposed.
Right at the start of the campaign I got in touch with a local Labour MP and the leader of the Football Supporters Association, both of whom I have known for a long time and are Newcastle fans and I expected them to be in opposition to the takeover. However they weren’t and there are people in positions who could make a difference who are simply not doing their jobs. The MP in question was asked if he would make one very clear statement about the abuse as it would have an important effect and he simply replied asking what could he do? ‘Who’d listen to me?’ We replied, ‘you’re a bloody MP!’
Similarly, the leader of the FSA who recently got an MBE, has also done little to speak out on the human rights abuses of Newcastle United’s owners or clearly oppose nation state ownership of our football clubs.
Then there is the MP Chi Onwurah, who used to speak out about the Saudi regime. We asked her to speak out for women who have been persecuted in Saudi Arabia as we also have asked Karen Kilgour, the leader of the Newcastle City Council. Kilgour refused to have a photograph taken with Saudi activists but both the MP and Kilgour were more than happy to have their photos taken with Eddie Howe and in front of the Carabao Cup. Both of these politicians have also accepted freebies from Saudi regime owned Newcastle United.
One local politician who has spoken to us was Jamie Driscoll and we’ve also had support from Greg Stone and Jane Byrne at the council. We thank them for their help.
Looking back we think the region’s media (NE Bylines excluded) fanzines editors, most local politicians, and ‘official’ NUFC fan groups didn’t do what they said they would do pre-Saudi state takeover, which was to ‘keep talking about human rights abuses’. Outside of the Tyneside bubble this lack of criticism of the Saudi regime and not holding the owners to account regarding their horrible human rights abuses has done damage to the region’s reputation, if we are honest with ourselves. It’s also evident that the vague promises of ‘massive’ Saudi investment in the region were simply a mirage used to push the takeover through. It’s also a condemnation of the state of local government finances that councillors are prepared to look the other way regarding the many human rights abuses committed by the owners of a historic Newcastle institution because they might invest something in the region.
We think by not speaking out they have created the impression that their silence on human rights is the price they are prepared to pay to keep the Saudi owners at the club. Given the wider political changes in the air at the moment, hopefully we will get MP’s and councillors in the future who stand by the traditions of our region – traditions of solidarity and support for human rights. NUFCFAS will also be working to get democratic fan organisations which will actually speak up for those abused by the club’s owners and clearly oppose nation state ownership of football clubs which if allowed to stand will be the ruin of the beautiful game.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
I just wanted to mention that our campaign has been quoted in a couple of books, we’ve been on a Radio 4 documentary and it is now time to write the story so – if anybody out there who wants to help us, that would be great.
People can get in touch with us via the website and I would ask people if you could do that and put their ideas forward as to how they think we should go forward.
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