Chelsea versus Newcastle United, a fixture so loaded with zeitgeist it might just make a collector’s item of half-and-half scarves. Were the hosts permitted to sell them, of course.
The rapture experienced by fans of Newcastle since the Toon acquired a Saudi postcode has echoes of the euphoria that met the arrival of Roman Abramovich two decades ago.
Those were the days, when cash reserves from state owned Russian industries turned private concerns washed through London like a tidal wave. Chelsea dispensed with the begging bowl held out by previous owner Ken Bates and opened an account with Coutts overnight.
How Abramovich came by his wealth and how he spent it barely troubled the British establishment or the football authorities. Even now, with Ukrainian hospitals and schools under bombardment from the state that made him rich and to which Abramovich is indelibly linked despite his denials, Chelsea fans still sing his name.
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Unconditional love is a pre-requisite of the fanscape, no matter how abhorrent the ownership. Chelsea supporters are grieving the death of the privilege Abramovich bestowed, torn from their grasp as abruptly as it came.
As offensive as it is to hear Abramovich serenaded in this way, it was not the fans who did the initial trade and whatever welcome they proffered back in 2003, be assured it was nothing compared with the warmth extended by Britain’s political class and the connected network of bankers, lawyers and accountants that oils the opaque cogs of global commerce.
Any disquiet or dissent there might be among Newcastle fans over the sale of their club to, putting it politely, Saudi business interests, is dwarfed by the intoxication brought about by an ownership that guarantees the kind of return seen at Chelsea, 18 major trophies in 19 years.
Newcastle have not won a pot since 1969. Manager Eddie Howe spent £90m in the January window bringing in four new signings plus Matt Targett on loan. Two, Chris Wood and Bruno Guimaraes, scored in Thursday’s win at Southampton. Only one player went the other way, the quickly forgotten Rosaire Longelo to Accrington Stanley.
Newcastle arrive at Stamford Bridge no longer threatened by relegation, having taken 19 points from 21. The away fans’ exultation will be heightened by the vicarious joy taken in Chelsea’s apocalyptic downgrade. This is the way of it in the stands, governed by the same emotional maturity any pre-school teacher would recognise.
The reckoning triggered by a UK government shamed to act by the scale of the atrocities perpetrated in Ukraine is considered by some to be long overdue. It connects to the growing discontent over the chronic distortions visited on English football since the arrival of Abramovich and state-backed Middle Eastern regimes.
Again the Premier League does not exist in a vacuum. Football has simply followed the cultural prompts of the British state and the commercial sector. The trail football followed was blazed in the City by London real estate agents and international traders.
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They are the same forces that led Saudi investors to Newcastle’s door. The Public Investment Fund was every bit as successful as Abramovich in distancing itself from the origins of its wealth.
The Premier League’s ownership test was satisfied that there was no connection between the PIF and the House of Saud.
It is hard to be too righteous in our indignation when the view is shared by powerful auditors and the best lawyers money can buy.
Newcastle might be fortunate that the war being prosecuted by Saudi Arabia in Yemen has not attracted the same opprobrium as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The conflict, now in its eighth year, has led to the displacement of more than one million people. Accusations of war crimes against Saudi Arabia have been made and denied.
What is not in dispute is the role played by British arms suppliers in beating down Houthi rebels. Britain is second only to the United States in the supply of weapons to the Saudi state – another reason, perhaps, not to interfere.
However, should relations sour, or the world turn on its axis in unexpected ways as it has in Europe, our elders might not be so ready to tolerate Newcastle’s links to a country so profoundly under the human rights microscope.
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Whether an independent regulator is forced upon football or not, it feels like the climate is changing, that we are less and less inclined to welcome investment on any terms.
Chelsea, the arch proponents of the unfettered football economy, are now the reluctant symbols of a new age of accountability, in the boardroom and on the balance sheet.
Whoever takes over at Stamford Bridge must demonstrate political and social propriety as well as financial. And as rich as they may be, the new owners will not be lending the club £1.5billion in petty cash.
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