There’s no reason that this takeover should have/has gone through. It’s absolutely impossible that PIF managed to prove they have no connection with Bin Salman and his lot. There’s nothing they could have given the Premier League to show it, aside from a Billion Pound cheque. The FA might as well scrap the Fit and Proper Persons test now, because if the likes of Steve Dale can take Bury over after taking 40+ businesses into liquidation and Saudi Arabia can buy Newcastle despite still hanging people and not giving women rights in the 21st century, then it’s simply pointless and nothing more than a box ticking, virtue signalling exercise.
However, no matter how atrocious this lot are, I can understand the Geordies’ delight, and would never take my annoyance from this takeover going through out of them. At the end of the day, they’re just football fans who want to see their club do well. There’s a misconception that they would never be happy unless Newcastle made top 4. All they want is a team with direction, and not fighting relegation year on year. This has simply not been possible with the worst owner in their history, Ashley, suffocating the club for the past 14 years. He’s far from a good man as well, what with the stories of the awful working conditions and workers being paid less than the minimum wage in a pandemic at Sports Direct coming out last year. Just that he’s nowhere near as awful as the people coming in, who have a genuine claim to being the worst people in the world.
I say all this as a person who doesn’t like Newcastle fans for their awful treatment of Bruce. There’s actually a thread of their forum called ‘happy Ashley’s gone but uncomfortable with the Saudi takeover’. Considering this is how the majority of their fans feel, I can live with that.
On the pitch, I can only see good things coming for Newcastle. When you are the richest club in the world and have so much room to manoeuvre with regards to FFP due to Ashley’s lack of spending, you can’t really fail. They’re looking at the right profile of players as well. The likes of Tarkowski and out of favour players like Donny, Martial and Barkley are perfect to get them challenging for the top 7 to first become an attractive on-field proposition, before really targeting the superstars to make them a permanent fixture in the top 4. Their plans seems similar to City’s, who started by signing players like Bridge and Given, before moving up to the likes of Toure and Silva.
For us, the implications of this takeover are basic: if we don’t get our act together, we will lose our top 4 spot in less than 3 years time, and with another club with so much money in the mix, I doubt we’ll be getting it back in a hurry should we lose it.