Journalists did a formidable job covering the controversial social issues surrounding the Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United. At the time of the takeover in October 2021, the world of sports journalists transitioned into human rights and sportswashing experts, seeking input from groups and governments across the world. Whilst this is a great job of journalists holding others to account, they failed in their reporting in another department. Competition.
As Marc Rohde and Christoph Breuer found in their research, foreign investment has given clubs an unfair advantage over domestically owned rivals and this has become normalised. The Saudi investment in Newcastle is just the latest example of the continued distortion of competition in UK football. As early as 2013 in Robert Wilson’s paper, the relationship between ownership structure and sporting performance has been examined extensively in corporate finance literature, but journalists have failed to hold this latest competition killer to account in everyday press. They have allowed big spending to become commonplace.
One year on from the questionable takeover, spending has paid off for Newcastle. Whilst new manager Eddie Howe has got a tune out of the existing Newcastle United squad, a few new toys have helped. Newcastle United went into the World Cup break in 3rd place in the Premier League.
Let that sink in…. 3rd place. Newcastle United finished in the lower midtable stagnation zone of 11–13th in every season between 2018/19 and 2021/22. This is a massive turn of events. Whilst they have rightfully received praise for their tactical change of fortunes on the pitch, the spending off it has been left criminally untouched by most journalists.
Competition is at the heart of sport. Competition is what sport thrives off. A core journalism value is to expose problems in society and inform citizens so they can make informed decisions. Journalists across the world did this competition distortion reporting better than their human rights reporting following the Abu Dhabi United Group takeover of Manchester City in 2008 or the Qatari Sports Investments takeover of PSG in 2011.
The human rights focus without a doubt is more important. Perhaps the world is now more conscious of social issues, but what’s happened to competition reporting?
Big spending has become normal and journalists have allowed this. Spending big money used to be seen as glamorous, but also as a power grab. Famously Manchester City bought Brazilian superstar Robinho on the final night of the summer 2008 transfer window following their takeover. Paris Saint Germain broke the world transfer record signing another Brazilian icon Neymar for €222 million, and French wonderkid Kylian Mbappé for €180 million. Both teams are widely acknowledged to have bought their way to the top, or at least in the early days.
Since the investment in these clubs, no other team has won more cumulative titles in their respective home countries than them. But we are just at the beginning for Newcastle. It is a story that we have seen before, so why are we not more aware? Whilst not the same level of star names that we saw at Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain, Newcastle have signed a host of up-and-coming names and proven Premier League players to boost their squad.
Following the standard set by their predecessors, Newcastle signed Brazilian midfielder Bruno Guimaraes for €50 million. Following this, the less exotic signings of Chris Wood, Dan Burn and Matt Targett arrived. The signing of Chris Wood from Burnley is a particularly interesting case. Newcastle, in the midst of a relegation scrap at the time, signed their relegation rival’s main goalscoring threat. Look where they are now. Burnley ended the season 18th and got relegated but now top the Championship, the league below. Newcastle finished the season 11th and are now 3rd in the Premier League.
The signings didn’t stop here. Newcastle continued their spending, further bleeding Burnley by signing their England international goalkeeper Nick Pope, along with loanee star Joe Willock from Arsenal. Swedish wonderkid Alexander Isak from Real Sociedad and defensive dream boy Sven Botman from Lille quickly followed suit. Before signing with Newcastle, Botman was linked with literal Italian Serie A league winners AC Milan.
Admittedly, social media has changed the game. Journalists are exposed to the public on a scale never seen before and as academics Fiona Martin and Colleen Murrell point out, they still lack the training to know how to deal with hostile audiences. If there is one group that can be hostile, it’s football fans. Any negative press around their club spreads faster than a wildfire, with filter bubbles and echo chambers having negative impacts. It is all too easy to turn against a journalist, but this shouldn’t stop them doing their job.
Journalists have also chosen to frame this takeover differently. The selection of certain aspects of a news story and making them more or less “salient” help journalists to present an issue. Clearly, the focus on human rights is a stronger and more visible narrative to display to a wider audience. Covering human rights violations is more important in holding nations to account than competition, but fair play is at the heart of sport. It is what makes so many people fall in love with it and dare to dream. Much like the real geopolitical world, if one actor has an advantage in buying the world’s most precious and powerful resources, it places them at the top of the pyramid.
Yes, there must changes to the status quo and surprises should be sprung. One of the best sporting stories of recent years was Leicester City coming from 5000/1 to win the league. But rather than letting fans accept that money buys power in the Premier League, journalists have a responsibility to uphold the beliefs and values of fair competition and call out competition killers. In the case of Newcastle United, they have clearly failed.
Between the Lynes 