Many Newcastle United fans will be dismayed that Mike Ashley’s dismal ownership of the club continues, after the collapsed £300m takeover deal, one of the most controversial in football history. They deserve to have their torture brought to an end.
No one should shed a tear for the buyer that has walked away, though: the consortium included PIF, the sovereign wealth fund of fun lovin’ Saudi Arabia.
The investment group insists it is autonomous and that the Saudi state would have had no day-to-day operational involvement. Yet Saudi Arabia’s backing for the purchase looked like an attempt to sportswash its appalling human rights record.
PIF’s chairman is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accused by Western intelligence services of ordering the murder and dismemberment of journalist and critic Jamal Khashoggi. (MBS blames rogue employees – and which other thrusting young executive has not had similar problems with workplace misunderstandings?)
Readers can decide for themselves whether or not the Premier League Owners’ and Directors’ Test allows for such activity, but it’s probably not great fodder for page 5 of the matchday programme.
Premier League lawyers were struggling to establish the exact relationship between PIF and the Saudi government. Good riddance then. Many football fans will join Newcastle’s supporters in hoping for a more agreeable new owner soon.
Male grooming – skip… Hobbies and Crafts – yes… Kitchen and Laundry – no, thank you… TOYS and GAMING, now we’re in business.
Many people born in the past half-century will have spent happy hours as a child browsing the “Book of Dreams”, a compendium of things that you could not afford and probably didn’t need. So the end of the Argos catalogue will – apart from ruining childhood – confirm 2020 as a year not to be remembered fondly.
Indulge me in my nostalgia. Which of you read it in bed with a torch under the duvet? Circled what you wanted for your birthday or Christmas (Mr Frosty), knowing that you would never get it? Staggered bleeding into the kitchen thinking of a games console, with an arterial bleed from a paper cut? As Bill Bailey put it: “You know why they laminate the Argos catalogue? To catch the tears of joy.”
Goodbye, then, to Europe’s most widely printed publication, stronger than a breeze block, pipped only by the Bible for its ubiquity and found in three-quarters of British homes.
Twitter: @olyduff
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/30Zaoxw
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