Can Newcastle United become the next Manchester City?

5th May 2020 til 7th October 2021. What a wait!

I agree, the epl should oppose Saudi and Emirati money in their competition.

So ultimately out of that rant, you just don't like Newcastle and you are a pessimist.

If Newcastle can't take Saudi money than no other entity in the whole of England should be doing it either. Its hypocritical to take their money in all other business relms and cry foul when a sports team does it. Why should a sporting team have to empose an embargo that the rest of the country does not participate in.

That would still be seen without Man City. The biggest price, publicly they have paid for a player is €75m [De Bruyne and Rodri]. This price is only 24th highest. The big prices are paid by PSG, Real Madrid, and Barcelona. As to the billion: hyperbole + dodgy maths

Yeah true but there’s already talk of mbappe being the first billion dollar player in the new decade. However, the financial fair play rules would probably screw that over

They certainly achieved more with the outward progressivism of mbs initially. Personally I think the premier league should veto the sale because of Saudi Arabia’s abhorrent record on human rights and the humanitarian disaster in Yemen

State financing doesn't work along those lines. Countries can find ways to borrow regardless of their international ventures. The Newcastle United purchase may have the effect of highlighting various human rights and regional hegemony concerns rather than dissipate them. What will be interesting is BeoutQ. Will the purchase of Newcastle United result in the withdrawal of Saudi state protection for the piracy operation? The main objective of the entity was to undermine Qatari owned BeIN Sports, however with Newcastle United as a Saudi state asset this piracy operation runs counter to the international public relation objectives investment in the EPL is to achieve. The dismantling of BeoutQ would signal a change of tactics from the Saudis, which may well occur as the current blunt approach has yielded far less than they had hoped.

No, fees/salaries were already increasing, and they did have a limit to what they would pay for a player: 'moneyball'.

But what about other countries? They’re not going to be willing to lend the money the saudis will need to fight a war in Yemen as well as deal with a non diversified economy, I do think they should’ve gone after the minority share in Manchester United from the glazer family.

But I also think that player wages and transfers have increased several orders of magnitude since the Emirati buy out of Manchester city.

I wonder what the effects of the threat of being dismembered by a Saudi hit squad will do for player motivation

No and Yes, all depends on the definition of success. City have become a permanent top 4 EPL side, but have not won the Champions League, similar to PSG. Further, City are bending/breaking the rules in financing the club. As to sports washing, I fully agree with those who deplore the Saudi involvement, but this is business not sports.

I thought you were referring to the Newcastle Jets until I scrolled down further.

Honestly, fans of the Toon should be appalled at the prospect of the Saudis running their club. I know fans don’t care so long as they’re winning but this really will be a travesty given their human rights record. As for whether they will be the new City, it’s highly unlikely. They’ve missed the boat with FFP in place and they need to spend well above what they can bring in without blatantly cheating for a long period of time to build a competitive squad. Do the sort of players they require want to forego Europe for money? I mean if you’re making £250k per week, do you need £300k plus? And after they manage to overspend and drag themselves to the top of the table, they’d need to then make their way through this absolutely bogus system UEFA has planned to ensure only the same clubs remain in the “Champions” League. And that only matters of UEFA don’t appease the big boys by changing the rules yet again to strengthen their grip on European places.

Given the collapse of the price of oil and the long-term suppression of demand, the Saudi public purse is taking one hell of a hit. Reportedly the fiscal break-even oil price for the Saudi national budget is around USD80/barrel. Hence they are operating at a huge deficit with little respite on the horizon due to ineffective efforts to diversify the economy. An oil market war with Russia that cranked up supply and literally flooded the market didn’t help. They do have a very low debt-GDP ratio which enables them to borrow however they’d still need to trim public expenditure significantly. It is here they may have some respite. The Saudis are investing heavily in the conflict in Yemen as a coalition of the Southern Transitional Council (backed by the UAE) and the ousted government of Adrabbuh Mansu Hadi (backed by Saudi) as well as some tribal allies fight the Houthi movement who have most of the North of the country including Saana. The STC have a goal of an independent Southern Yemen, bringing back the state that merged with North Yemen in 1990 as Soviet support evaporated in the lead-up to its eventual collapse. The STC felt the Hadi Government was not acting in accord with agreements and effectively pulled out of the alliance and declared its rule over Southern provinces only a few days ago. That has left the Saudi-backed Hadi Government in a precarious position as it has few fighters and relies almost entirely upon Saudi support. The weakening of the Hadi Government may give the Saudi’s a chance to withdraw their support and extricate themselves from the mess, however that would leave the UAE with all the influence in the South and Iran with influence with the Houthis. This is likely to prove unpalatable for a regime focussed upon regional geo-political dominance. Saudi is still involved in other regional conflicts (such as Syria and Libya) however Yemen is without a doubt its highest profile venture. Then there is the matter of the Qatar blockade and BeoutQ, the pirate channel that has Saudi government acquiesence, which is illegally distributing content, robbing professional sports of many millions of dollars. This includes the EPL. This was initially set-up to undermine Qatar owned BeIN Sports, however it soon morphed into its own monster and threatened sports across the globe as rights were unable to be enforced and hence significantly devalued. So, the Saudis want Newcastle United for “sports washing”, as they try to clean-up their image. As long as they remain havily involved in Yemen this will be an important policy objective however the subsequent attention drawn to BeoutQ and the extended financial crisis will dampen their enthusiasm. So will millions of dollars flood the North of England? It depends on the geo-political balancing act, as this acquisition has little to do with sport.