Saudi Arabia has bought Newcastle United football club. The Saudis have agreed to pay £305 million ($415 m) to the club’s owner. In fact, the Saudi interest in buying Newcastle United is not new, and back in April 2020 a consortium of the Saudi Public Investment Fund submitted a purchase offer amounting to 300 million pounds for the prestigious English club. At that time, the deal didn’t materialize despite the club owner’s enthusiasm and desire to sell, but the project was thwarted because of intense pressure and opposition from left-wing, liberal, and green parties, human rights groups, and media campaigns in Britain against the proposed Saudi acquisition due to the Kingdom’s poor human rights record and the absence of financial transparency. The robbery practiced by Saudi Arabia on the rights to broadcast the World Cup and the English Premier League matches through the piracy channel (beoutQ) was an additional reason for obstructing the Saudi offer then. But it seems that Mike Ashley (the Newcastle owner) exerted his pressures and influence on the ruling Conservative Party and Prime Minister Johnson to approve the deal and let it pass this time.  

Now we are likely to watch a three-way Arab football struggle to win the oldest football championships of Europe. Both Qatar and Abu Dhabi are already there in the field competing for European titles with all their financial might.

Qatar recently bought the services of the world’s most famous footballer, Leo Messi, through its French football enterprise: Paris Saint-Germain club. Media reports in Europe say that Paris club's spending on players and their contracts reached 1.90 billion euros since Qatar bought the club ten years ago.

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This amazing spending on Paris Saint-Germain comes within the context of the Qatari project to emerge on the world stage as a pole and sponsor of football and as a continuation of the success in winning the hosting of the 2022 World Cup, as well as the Qatari network (beIN Sport) monopolizing the rights to broadcast major tournaments in the world for many years, with and huge spending. It also comes in the context of competition with its arch-rival in the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates, which launched a similar project in late 2008 when it bought the English club Manchester City and began spending on it generously. According to the British press, during the twelve years of its ownership of Manchester City, Abu Dhabi spent an amount of 2.05 billion euros in purchase deals and salaries for players and coaches. Despite all this, the achievements and trophies won by the two clubs so far have been limited to the local leagues (English and French), while even with this kind of expenditure and amazing numbers, the two clubs (Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain) have so far failed to win the largest title at the European level, the Champions League (which is the goal set by the administrations of the two clubs), which if achieved will mean the two clubs joined the elite club in world football.

Football is the world's No.1 sport and somebody has convinced the Arab Sheikhs’ in the Gulf that investing heavily in buying famous European clubs is a wonderful tool to be utilized for their propaganda and image–saving efforts. 

From now on, Newcastle United is a Saudi enterprise and in terms of awaited expenditure on it, SKY WILL BE THE LIMIT, we may bet.