A BLATANT example of sportswashing or the inevitable strengthening of pre-existing bonds between a football club and the nation state that is involved in its ownership? The staging of a Saudi Arabia friendly at St James’ Park was always going to have a geopolitical dimension, with last night’s meeting with Costa Rica once again putting the Magpies’ relationship with the Saudi state in the spotlight.

Should Newcastle be staging matches that provide a global showcase for a regime that is implicated in a shockingly wide range of human rights abuses? Not according to Lina al-Hathloul, who has been in the North-East this week to voice her anger at last night’s game, which ended in a 3-1 win to Costa Rica, as well as next Tuesday’s friendly with South Korea, which will also be staged at St James’.

Lina’s sister, Loujain, was jailed in her native Saudi Arabia after campaigning for women’s rights to drive and posting a video of herself behind the wheel in a car on Twitter. Loujain claims to have been tortured during her 1,001 days of imprisonment, and is currently the subject of a travel ban that prevents her from leaving Saudi Arabia to help ensure she is not able to speak out personally about her treatment.

“When has the Saudi team played abroad for a friendly match?” said Lina. “It’s very rare. So, they’re using Newcastle as a tool to push for their own agenda.”

Lina’s concerns are shared by NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing, a group that have campaigned against Saudi Arabian ownership ever since the Saudi Public Investment Fund was announced as the majority owners of Newcastle almost two years ago.

The group held a demonstration outside St James’ Park last night, and while it was small, perhaps attended by around ten people, and had to move to ensure it was not breaching regulations by encroaching on the environs of the ground, it nevertheless highlighted that not all Newcastle fans are entirely comfortable with the increasingly tight bonds between the club and the Saudi hierarchy.

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Last night’s attendance was hardly massive despite tickets being priced at just £5 for adults and £2 for children – a rough estimate would place the crowd at around 5,000 – and a number of native Saudi Arabians were in attendance, whether as residents of Newcastle or travellers from further afield.

The ‘home’ North-Eastern support was clearly pro-Saudi Arabia though, as evidenced by the cheers and excitement that accompanied any Saudi breaks into the Costa Rican 18-yard box, underlining the extent to which Newcastle United and the Middle Eastern nation are becoming intertwined.

The Northern Echo: Saudi Arabia fans outside St James' ParkSaudi Arabia fans outside St James' Park (Image: The Northern Echo)

To organisations such as Amnesty International, who have protested vociferously against Saudi Arabian investment into global sport, that is sportswashing in practice. As is the fact that it is becoming increasingly routine to see Saudi Arabian influence in a wide range of sporting circles, whether that be as buyers of worldwide footballing talent for the Saudi Pro League or backers of the LIV Golf circuit that has now attached itself to the PGA Tour.

The counterargument, from a Newcastle perspective, is that as Saudi Arabia spreads its tentacles into so many parts of not just the global sporting network, but also the wider British and global economy, so it becomes increasingly unfair to single out the Magpies for criticism and censure.

If the British Government thinks it is okay to deal with Saudi Arabia – and it clearly does – why shouldn’t Newcastle United also embrace the country? If the entire golfing world is now being propped up by Saudi Arabian money, why shouldn’t Newcastle look to grow and develop thanks to the financial support of the Saudi PIF?

Last night’s game will have benefited Newcastle financially, a major issue as the club attempts to invest in the playing squad while remaining on the right side of the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play regulations, and enabled the Magpies to show off their stadium to a domestic Saudi Arabian audience.

Given the ties that bind them to the Middle Eastern state, it is hardly surprising that Newcastle are actively attempting to court Saudi society as a potentially-lucrative market. Senior figures at the club are happy to confirm that cornering Saudi Arabia’s football-mad consumers is a clear ambition, a process that nights such as yesterday should aid.

“In a lot of territories, you have inherited fanbases where people have already built their affinities to a Premier League club, but in Saudi Arabia, because it’s such a young, dynamic, fast-moving community, we’ve got a real opportunity to punch above our weight in that country,” said Newcastle CEO Darren Eales in a recent press interview. “The aim is certainly to be number one there.”

From a Newcastle perspective, if you’re attracting criticism because of your ownership model anyway, then you might as well go all in and extract the maximum possible benefit. That suggests Saudi Arabian matches on Tyneside could become relatively commonplace, along with Newcastle’s mid-season training camps in Riyadh.

That will make some people uneasy, but in a world in which Saudi Arabian money props up a whole host of companies, and in a region in which the Saudi-based Alfanar group has pledged to invest £1bn to support the Lighthouse Green Fuels project on Teesside that will produce sustainable aviation fuel and support more than 700 much-needed jobs, Newcastle will claim that they are merely following the crowd.

Sportswashing or the reality of sports economics? Or, as is probably the case, a bit of both?