give me an example of a problem that you think it already exists so I can elaborate with you further.
Club Sale | It’s done!
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Agreed, that is an interesting one to take a stand on, and I am fine with Qatari ownership.
When did you live there and where? What did you see with migrant workers being treated like slaves? I lived in the middle east for a decade and I'm calling out your bluff on this being "entirely true". Would love to hear some stories of migrant worker abuse worse than what we see in England.
I won't be surprised if he comes out with some case of an Arab being a general twat and swearing at a migrant or something and equate that to some form of slavery. As I said, having lived a decade in the middle east I have seen a lot of moronic and rude Arabs who treat immigrants badly but I've seen worse treatment of minorities in America and Europe.
Housemaids emprisoned for the term of their contract and not allowed out of the house unless travelling with their host family - there were 2 on our compound where they weren't even allowed to write home and we secretly mailed letters for them occasionally so at least their kids/family knew theye were alive. Many sexually abused as well. Terrible treatment of workers from places like India, Pakistan. Worker deaths convered up or miss reported. Abominable and systematic mistreatment of women, generally treated like property. Zero worker protection, even for western expats e.g. a collegue of my wife's was a councillor and she was deported for refusing to tell her boss which girl she was helping was raped by a family member so he could tell her family who had royal connections. Debt treated as a crime with virtually no legal recourse especially for expats. The law in general is more about who you know than what you did/didn't do. I know a member of the Caf who was imprisoned for someone else's debt until they paid it off on the basis that he was working on the same project. No legal connection or financial guarantees involved - just someone with royal connections didn't want to lose money and didn't care who paid for it.
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Last time I lived their was a while ago and that was in Dubai/Sharjah, so nowhere near as bad as Saudi. But I have lots of friends who still work in various parts of the region (Kuwait, Dubai, Qatar and Saudi) and they think there has been very very little change - mainly lip service.
I wish we could at least do away with the post-reality nonsense when it comes to what the political, social and judicial reality is in Qatar. It's been widely reported for years.
I just hope whatever happens that we get lucky with the next owners. They can help the community and finally realise the potential for development in and around Old Trafford. We don’t need Mbappe. We just need to be run in an organic way where we reinvest the money we make and always strive to be at the cutting edge and reach our full potential. The glazers have always taken a staggered approach to this and that’s being extremely generous to them. They are just not good owners. I’ll be so glad when they finally leave. I can’t believe they are going to be walking away with billions for the job they’ve done on us.
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I can't believe United fans are letting this happen. They'll go out and protest because of a Super League but will just happily watch us be bought by Qatar. We'll turn into City 2. People should be going mad. Everything this club stands for history and prestige won't mean anything, we'll just be the next Oil club. Titles won after that won't mean shit.
I believe Ten Hag would win us titles without any oil money. He would probably even win us titles under Glazer ownership. I would rather us win titles through the clubs own strength and against all odds with the Glazer's leeching on us than have these guys come in and take all the credit for making us win stuff again! We'll be winning stuff anyway with ten Hag. We're rich enough as it is. We just need an owner that will let us spend our own money the way we want to.
I believe Ten Hag would win us titles without any oil money. He would probably even win us titles under Glazer ownership. I would rather us win titles through the clubs own strength and against all odds with the Glazer's leeching on us than have these guys come in and take all the credit for making us win stuff again! We'll be winning stuff anyway with ten Hag. We're rich enough as it is. We just need an owner that will let us spend our own money the way we want to.
I think its a case of the abuse anecdotes being more overt and in your face in these Arab states compared to the West where its more subtle, though in many cases just as damaging. In the UK for instance we've had over a decade of dogwhistling scapegoating of foreigners, workers and low-income families essentially being put the sword by an austerity-crazed Tory government. And on the other side of the pond you have institutionalised racism within law enforcement and women's rights being eroded by federal legislation.
Though for the sake of balance I don't think its as extreme as depicted for both sides. I'd wager migrants aren't being rounded up for routine abuse everyday, nor is every black young man stopped by cops gunned down.
If you mean league title, we now have very low chance due to the recent run of mediocre results. Glazers are on the edge broken financially I think. The new start with glazers gone will definitely put us back to the title race next season.
Mmuppét?
Can you give an example of something concrete? Anything? Even for China we have videos and images of concentration camps for North Korea there's something concrete but as someone who just came back from Saudi Arabia 2 months ago I'd like to know about these slaves that are being kept in the middle east
EDIT: sorry I see you gave an example above. I will reply in a bit
I don't think this will happen if ETH is the manager. he would have learnt something from the Ronaldo debacle.
I think this is tad unrealistic, as good as he's been. The Glazer model of ownership has reached an impasse and we're now at the point where we're forced to resort to loan signings because of how limited our cash flow is. 18 years of Glazer ownership and the chickens have finally come home to roost as the reality of their ownership has now become apparent. Its why they've been begging for minority investment and probably why they're looking to sell the club.
I’ve been to a few places in the ME but only place I know well is Dubai, and it feels to me like Indian/filo etc… immigrants don’t really participate in society
They certainly can’t afford to socialise in many of the bars/restaurants, or buy property.
last time I was there was during EID (I think, or one of the religious festivals anyway) and the one day the streets were packed with Indians and Pakistanis dressed up and taking photos. I asked this one lad why everyone was taking so many photos of the sites if you live there anyway, and he said it’s one of the only days off we get in the year. He also said he gets paid about $200 usd a month. I was spending that easily on a night out
I don’t know if you could call it slavery, but it certainly isn’t equitable for the amount of work they do and the reward they get for it
They certainly can’t afford to socialise in many of the bars/restaurants, or buy property.
last time I was there was during EID (I think, or one of the religious festivals anyway) and the one day the streets were packed with Indians and Pakistanis dressed up and taking photos. I asked this one lad why everyone was taking so many photos of the sites if you live there anyway, and he said it’s one of the only days off we get in the year. He also said he gets paid about $200 usd a month. I was spending that easily on a night out
I don’t know if you could call it slavery, but it certainly isn’t equitable for the amount of work they do and the reward they get for it
Do you think there is a subtle difference between how women are treated in the US and Europe vs the Middle East?
Well west has a significantly higher percentage of women that get raped so you may be on to something
Don’t think Zidane is “must have” which is strange considering all his CL titles. Might be he’s made it clear to his agent he’s not interested in the prem so English clubs never go after him. Most likely Zidane will manage Real another 5 times and win another 10 CL before calling it a day.
Wow. Why did I get into the slop....back to the tweets.
It might be unrealistic, which I don't think it is. We have a good chance at winning something this season. Anyway I would rather us not win anything and get relegated to the bottom of english Football than be called a lucky oil club like City or PSG.
We'll get relegated anyway in a couple of years for cheating and doing shady business like City if Qatar buy us.
just say “i don’t care about my teams owners committing human rights abuses, i just want my team to win” and be done with it. All this other posturing and whataboutism is childish
For starters you're treating those regions as a collective, namely Europe and the Middle East. In the case of the latter there (believe it or not) exists a difference with the rights afforded to women in Saudi Arabia versus pretty much every other country in the region. The same principle applies if you compare Sweden to say Orban's Hungary.
And again its a matter of perspective. Most women I know who've lived in the middle east have felt infinitely more safer there than in parts of Europe. Shamans' point about rape statistics is testament to that.
I am for the Qatar ownership mainly because I can separate my personal beliefs from those held by potential owners of our club.
However, anyone who denies that the immigrants are treated very poorly and are extremely underpaid have their head in the sand. You only have to go to one of these countries to see how the migrant workers live there to understand how awful that situation is.
I would humbly submit that people that think migrant workers in the ME are modern day slaves should actually look at empirical research on the topic: guest worker programs in the ME are among the highest return anti-poverty programs in the world. These programs can near double average earnings of migrant workers, and migrant workers who choose not to participate are *not* driven by poor working conditions or excessive work but because they are not willing to give up their lives in their home countries for much higher wages in the ME. That is, there is unobserved heterogeneity in tastes for migration.
Here is an excellent recent paper on the topic: https://economics.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2022/09/20221123_Suresh-Naidu.pdf
Here is an excellent recent paper on the topic: https://economics.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2022/09/20221123_Suresh-Naidu.pdf
I mean that's your prerogative, but I think that's an odd stance for a United fan, especially as our loyalty has always been to the club and not to the ownership (something we have close to no control over). And it would be ridiculous to group us with chancers like City or PSG, teams who were essentially no marks that had won the lottery, whereas we boast a prestigious history and footballing legacy and much of this has been in spite of a cripplingly poor ownership I should add. And moreover - why should you care what the media and opposition fans say about us? We're United so we're stuck in a perpetual damned if we do, damned if we don't scenario everytime. Feck em.
As for your point about us following City's path, I just don't see this fear. We have absolutely no reason to engage in those dark arts considering our revenue is already very strong, and the club already has the natural finances and prestige to attract the best talents.
Meanwhile in England, France and Italy migrant workers and laborers are fully functioning members of society living in pretty much the same neighborhoods as the local white folk. In fact, some would have you believe there's a country called America where even the locals (blacks) are living in underrepresented neighborhoods with poorer schools and poorer access to healthcare!
Did you not noticed the Jan transfer activity? Three loanees?
In all my years of supporting United -- that's pre-Fergie days that I can remember United getting 3 loanees and no actual buys in a transfer widow or in a season (pre-transfer windows when it could be done during a season.)
If this isn't an indication of what's to come if the Glazers stay, not sure what is.
We are on financial life support. Oil money or otherwise, that's the price for getting the cnuts out of the club plus the capital injection to make up for the lost years of investments just to get back to square one.
So do I think we can compete and even win the league under such conditions? Hell no. ETH is a good manager but not some sharman or miracle worker when he hands are tied behind his back.
I don't get it.
There’s a huge difference within the ME to how women are treated it’s not one homogeneous zone. The ones where women excel in education and business are Qatar, UAE, previously Iraq (not sure what went wrong there) and also Syria.
Also one thing. For all concerns we hear for women in the ME, very few people actually bother to ask them. We just had a WC in Qatar. The BBC didn’t bother to show most of it, but anyone that paid attention would have noticed the Qatari women amongst the fans, and a big percentage of the “important” people from the Qatari side were women. Just something I noticed, usually after CL or FA cup finals all the “suits” are literally guys.
Kuwait and Bahrain as well. Especially Kuwait where woman are pretty much active parts of society.
Jesus wept
Thanks for the thoughtful response, appreciate it mate.
I always judge a gov't ability to govern according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
If you cant offer the most basic needs, then its failing.
For Alonzo had not left his high street let alone England to actually know about these countries.
I mean surely you realise its a bit more nuanced than that.
Accepting Qatari ownership doesn't mean we have to start wearing kaffiyehs on our heads and waving Qatari flags like the Geordie idiots are doing. Nor does it mean we should be throw away our support for the club we've always been loyal to. Do you stand outside petrol stations and lament everyone who choose to fill up their cars with middle east imported oil as human right abuse enablers?
See it's interesting when you see it through that lens. How would you say the US or certain parts of Europe fare in comparison to Qatar or the Emirates with the 'basic needs' core of the pyramid?I always judge a gov't ability to govern according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
If you cant offer the most basic needs, then its failing.
This whole buying and selling of clubs in England should be stopped anyway. Imagine some rich cnut coming to Germany and turning Bayern Munich or Dortmund into their play thing. People would riot. United fans just lying down and taking it up the a***
Why is the US always brought up as a counter point to criticism of non-western countries? Like everyone in the so called "west" sees them as their gods or whatever.
It would actually be refreshing and dare I say it - welcoming if one of the lesser German sides were owned by an ambitious billionaire. Might instill some life into the predictable one-horse dozefest that's the Bundesliga
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