LaPennaBianca
Well-known member
Imagine selling yourselves out like this. All for a few pots that aren't worth anything, as they've been bought.
Geordies hosting Saudi national team
- Thread starter LaPennaBianca
- Start date
uncle_rico
Well-known member
Wonder if there’ll be a public stoning as the pre-match entertainment?
Berwickhillbilly
Well-known member
They will be told to, or lose your season ticket.
Glover_elbow
Well-known member
Geordie fans with tea towels on their heads no doubt.
joeydiaz
Well-known member
I’d have to be heavily stoned to go anywhere near the **** hole.
coluka
Well-known member
I wonder how long before the traditional barcode kit is replaced by the beloved Green? Pies replaced by Gorayba or Mashed Potato with Tahini in the concourse? Married Women only allowed to attend with husbands, fans chanting Mashallah during the game. Mind I’d love it if they relocated home games to Riyadh.
r00fie1
Well-known member
I wonder if the Toon LGBT fans will be welcoming them with open arms and pride?
* You might be interested to know that United With Pride left the UK National Fans Network in 2021, due to criticism of the Saudi biggots stoning and imprisonment of non-straight people by fans from all other clubs. Very much on their own now.
www.middleeasteye.net
By Nur Ayoubi
Published date: 25 November 2021 16:35 GMT
Contributor
Human Rights Watch Director of Global Initiatives.
* You might be interested to know that United With Pride left the UK National Fans Network in 2021, due to criticism of the Saudi biggots stoning and imprisonment of non-straight people by fans from all other clubs. Very much on their own now.
Newcastle United LGBTQ+ group leaves fan network over Saudi backlash
United with Pride says it has received constant criticism since the football club's takeover by a Saudi-led consortium
www.middleeasteye.net
Newcastle United LGBTQ+ group leaves fan network over Saudi backlash United with Pride says it has received constant criticism since the football club's takeover by a Saudi-led consortium
By Nur Ayoubi
Published date: 25 November 2021 16:35 GMT
Newcastle United’s LGBTQ+ supporters' group United with Pride has pulled out of the Pride in Football network, following criticism of their response to the Saudi takeover of the British football club.
United with Pride’s break from the network of gay fan groups was confirmed in a statement by Pride in Football.
"LGBT+ fan groups have faced increasing media attention since the takeover of Newcastle United given the questions raised around human rights,” read the Pride in Football statement posted on Wednesday.
United with Pride’s break from the network of gay fan groups was confirmed in a statement by Pride in Football.
"LGBT+ fan groups have faced increasing media attention since the takeover of Newcastle United given the questions raised around human rights,” read the Pride in Football statement posted on Wednesday.
Explained: Saudi Arabia’s takeover of Newcastle United
“No football fan should be excluded because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Our work in this area will continue, and we shall continue to raise the case of human rights - whether in relation to the Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United or the hosting of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar."
"Whilst any member leaving Pride in Football is a sad moment, we would like to reiterate our commitment to campaign for LGBT+ inclusion, visibility and acceptance in sport and society."
United with Pride claim that since the takeover of Newcastle United led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), they have received constant criticism from those who say the group should do more regarding the kingdom’s human rights issues.
In an interview with the BBC Sport on Wednesday, Ian Pearson-Brown, the co-chair of United with Pride, said: “We have zero influence on who owns Newcastle United Football Club… and we just hope that, over time, people come to realise that attacking us doesn’t get the results you want.”
“If you want to improve the conditions for people in Saudi Arabia, talk to Amnesty International, talk to the Saudi consulate, talk to the UK government who engage with them all of the time.”
Saudi Arabia’s PIF is the largest party in the consortium that purchased Newcastle United Football Club in early October.
The move received instant criticism from rights advocates who accuse the kingdom of attempting to “sportswash” abuses.
At the time, United with Pride, which works in partnership with Newcastle United, faced backlash after publishing a statement regarding the takeover, which claimed working with the club’s new owners could be “a positive influence to improving the conditions for the LGBTQ+ community in Saudi Arabia”.
Not forgetting the Tyranny of Saudi Arabia sports-washing of the Womens World Cup:
“No football fan should be excluded because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Our work in this area will continue, and we shall continue to raise the case of human rights - whether in relation to the Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United or the hosting of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar."
"Whilst any member leaving Pride in Football is a sad moment, we would like to reiterate our commitment to campaign for LGBT+ inclusion, visibility and acceptance in sport and society."
United with Pride claim that since the takeover of Newcastle United led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), they have received constant criticism from those who say the group should do more regarding the kingdom’s human rights issues.
In an interview with the BBC Sport on Wednesday, Ian Pearson-Brown, the co-chair of United with Pride, said: “We have zero influence on who owns Newcastle United Football Club… and we just hope that, over time, people come to realise that attacking us doesn’t get the results you want.”
“If you want to improve the conditions for people in Saudi Arabia, talk to Amnesty International, talk to the Saudi consulate, talk to the UK government who engage with them all of the time.”
Saudi Arabia’s PIF is the largest party in the consortium that purchased Newcastle United Football Club in early October.
The move received instant criticism from rights advocates who accuse the kingdom of attempting to “sportswash” abuses.
At the time, United with Pride, which works in partnership with Newcastle United, faced backlash after publishing a statement regarding the takeover, which claimed working with the club’s new owners could be “a positive influence to improving the conditions for the LGBTQ+ community in Saudi Arabia”.
Not forgetting the Tyranny of Saudi Arabia sports-washing of the Womens World Cup:
Saudi Arabia’s Newest Sportswashing Strategy: Sponsorship Of Women’s World Cup
FIFA should not allow Saudi Arabia Tourism to sponsor the 2023 Women's World Cup. The tournament celebrates the global women's game—and it should not be an opportunity to launder the reputation of a government that shamelessly violates women's rights.
www.forbes.com
Saudi Arabia’s Newest Sportswashing Strategy: Sponsorship Of Women’s World Cup
FIFA should not allow Saudi Arabia Tourism to sponsor the 2023 Women's World Cup. The tournament celebrates the global women's game—and it should not be an opportunity to launder the reputation of a government that shamelessly violates women's rights.
www.forbes.com
Saudi Arabia’s Newest Sportswashing Strategy: Sponsorship Of Women’s World Cup
Minky WordenContributor
Human Rights Watch Director of Global Initiatives.
FIFA’s decision to award Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority sponsorship of the 2023 Women’s World Cup shows shocking disregard for suffering and repression of Saudi’s courageous women’s rights defenders. It points to the need for FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, finally to carry out its promised human rights due diligence on the impact of its decisions and to enforce its own human rights and non-discrimination policies across all FIFA operations—including future World Cup hosts and sponsorships.
The Women’s World Cup is the every-four-years flagship event in women’s soccer—and with more than a billion viewers, the most watched global women’s sport event. Top female athletes worldwide train their entire professional careers to play, and for many it is the apex of their careers. As a sponsoring company, the Saudi state tourism campaign will be shown throughout women’s games, on the jumbotron, in stadiums and blanketing game-time television with advertisements.
Saudi Arabia, of course, is a global outlier on human rights—and especially women’s rights. As recently as 2018, women and girls were still barred from taking part in sport in schools or even watching sports in stadiums. Over the past decade, Saudi women fought for and won some reforms. For example, they can now drive and travel abroad without permission of male guardians.
However, many women’s rights activists were imprisoned just as the authorities enacted the reforms they had advocated, the government continues to ban women’s rights activists from travelling abroad, and courts have imposed harsh sentences to silence criticism. Last August, Saudi Arabia sentenced Salma Al-Shehab, a Saudi doctoral student in the UK to 34 years in prison—based solely on her use of Twitter.
Saudi Arabia has not fully dismantled the “male guardianship" system, and instead in 2022 passed the first Personal Status Law that codifies male guardianship. The law requires women to obtain permission from a male guardian—their father, brother, uncle or grandfather—to marry and they must “obey” husbands. Saudi authorities still require women to obtain male guardian permission to leave prison or obtain some forms of sexual and reproductive health care. Husbands reportedly can prevent a woman from seeking higher education abroad.
Saudi authorities also repress the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and have eliminated discussion around gender and sexuality from the public sphere, including online. In 2020, a Saudi court convicted a Yemeni blogger living in Riyadh as an undocumented migrant, because he posted a video on Twitter saying, “LGBT people deserve rights.” He was charged with promoting homosexuality online and “imitating women,” and sentenced to 10 months in prison, where security officers held him in solitary confinement for weeks, subjected him to a forced anal exam, and repeatedly beat him to compel him to confess he is gay.
LGBT people in Saudi Arabia practice extreme self-censorship to survive their daily lives. LGBT players and fans visiting Saudi will also likely face censorship, stigma, and discrimination on the basis on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
So long as Saudi Arabia discriminates against LGBT people and punishes women for their rights activism or their otherwise peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, FIFA should not be allowing Saudi authorities to use the most-watched women’s sport event to sportswash its rights abuses.
Human Rights Watch contacted FIFA to request details on the soccer governing body’s human rights due diligence and stakeholder consultation for selection of World Cup hosts and awarding commercial sponsorship contracts. FIFA has not responded.
As the former Australia Women’s National Soccer team vice-captain Moya Dodd told Human Rights Watch: “There will be many LGBT players and fans at the Women’s World Cup who find soccer a place where they can belong and fully express themselves. The safe and inclusive vibe of women’s soccer is really precious, and part of the zeitgeist of women’s sport.” With respect to FIFA’s plans for Saudi state sponsorship, she said: “It’s hard to see how this could pass responsible business principles, let alone meet FIFA’s own human rights obligations and policies.”
Female players and officials from Australia and New Zealand were reportedly not consulted prior to FIFA’s decision to make Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority a marquee partner for the tournament. FIFA and Qatari authorities have yet to compensate migrant workers for the abuses they faced delivering the Qatar Men’s 2022 World Cup, and sponsors are tarnished by association for that failure.
Saudi Arabia’s ambitions around major sporting events are clearly expanding beyond sponsorships: Politico broke news this week that Saudi Arabia offered to pay for billions in stadium and other infrastructure costs for Greece and Egypt in a joint bid to host the 2030 Men’s World Cup—more evidence of the government’s strategy to “sportswash” its poor human rights record by hosting beloved sporting events.
Saudi authorities could better make their case to promote their record by reforming abysmal human rights policies and practices that discriminate and punish women, human rights defenders, LGBT people, migrant workers and religious minorities.
*
FIFA should reverse its decision to include the Saudi state authority as a sponsor. The Women's World Cup is a festival of soccer and a celebration of the skill and diversity within the women's game—not an opportunity to launder the reputation of a government that violates women's rights.
The Women’s World Cup is the every-four-years flagship event in women’s soccer—and with more than a billion viewers, the most watched global women’s sport event. Top female athletes worldwide train their entire professional careers to play, and for many it is the apex of their careers. As a sponsoring company, the Saudi state tourism campaign will be shown throughout women’s games, on the jumbotron, in stadiums and blanketing game-time television with advertisements.
Saudi Arabia, of course, is a global outlier on human rights—and especially women’s rights. As recently as 2018, women and girls were still barred from taking part in sport in schools or even watching sports in stadiums. Over the past decade, Saudi women fought for and won some reforms. For example, they can now drive and travel abroad without permission of male guardians.
However, many women’s rights activists were imprisoned just as the authorities enacted the reforms they had advocated, the government continues to ban women’s rights activists from travelling abroad, and courts have imposed harsh sentences to silence criticism. Last August, Saudi Arabia sentenced Salma Al-Shehab, a Saudi doctoral student in the UK to 34 years in prison—based solely on her use of Twitter.
Saudi Arabia has not fully dismantled the “male guardianship" system, and instead in 2022 passed the first Personal Status Law that codifies male guardianship. The law requires women to obtain permission from a male guardian—their father, brother, uncle or grandfather—to marry and they must “obey” husbands. Saudi authorities still require women to obtain male guardian permission to leave prison or obtain some forms of sexual and reproductive health care. Husbands reportedly can prevent a woman from seeking higher education abroad.
Saudi authorities also repress the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and have eliminated discussion around gender and sexuality from the public sphere, including online. In 2020, a Saudi court convicted a Yemeni blogger living in Riyadh as an undocumented migrant, because he posted a video on Twitter saying, “LGBT people deserve rights.” He was charged with promoting homosexuality online and “imitating women,” and sentenced to 10 months in prison, where security officers held him in solitary confinement for weeks, subjected him to a forced anal exam, and repeatedly beat him to compel him to confess he is gay.
LGBT people in Saudi Arabia practice extreme self-censorship to survive their daily lives. LGBT players and fans visiting Saudi will also likely face censorship, stigma, and discrimination on the basis on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
So long as Saudi Arabia discriminates against LGBT people and punishes women for their rights activism or their otherwise peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, FIFA should not be allowing Saudi authorities to use the most-watched women’s sport event to sportswash its rights abuses.
Human Rights Watch contacted FIFA to request details on the soccer governing body’s human rights due diligence and stakeholder consultation for selection of World Cup hosts and awarding commercial sponsorship contracts. FIFA has not responded.
As the former Australia Women’s National Soccer team vice-captain Moya Dodd told Human Rights Watch: “There will be many LGBT players and fans at the Women’s World Cup who find soccer a place where they can belong and fully express themselves. The safe and inclusive vibe of women’s soccer is really precious, and part of the zeitgeist of women’s sport.” With respect to FIFA’s plans for Saudi state sponsorship, she said: “It’s hard to see how this could pass responsible business principles, let alone meet FIFA’s own human rights obligations and policies.”
Female players and officials from Australia and New Zealand were reportedly not consulted prior to FIFA’s decision to make Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority a marquee partner for the tournament. FIFA and Qatari authorities have yet to compensate migrant workers for the abuses they faced delivering the Qatar Men’s 2022 World Cup, and sponsors are tarnished by association for that failure.
Saudi Arabia’s ambitions around major sporting events are clearly expanding beyond sponsorships: Politico broke news this week that Saudi Arabia offered to pay for billions in stadium and other infrastructure costs for Greece and Egypt in a joint bid to host the 2030 Men’s World Cup—more evidence of the government’s strategy to “sportswash” its poor human rights record by hosting beloved sporting events.
Saudi authorities could better make their case to promote their record by reforming abysmal human rights policies and practices that discriminate and punish women, human rights defenders, LGBT people, migrant workers and religious minorities.
*
FIFA should reverse its decision to include the Saudi state authority as a sponsor. The Women's World Cup is a festival of soccer and a celebration of the skill and diversity within the women's game—not an opportunity to launder the reputation of a government that violates women's rights.
The_Lizards_Jumpers
Well-known member
These guys are very vocal about the ownership, and I'd love to think we'd have a similar group should Gibson sell up to any despotic regimes.
atomicloonybin aka ALB
Well-known member
I do hate Twitter, it's a cess pit, but it's like a car crash, you have to look. Anyone who's tweeted anything on that thread that's remotely anti-Saudi gets swamped by a bunch of Saudi spam. I can't decide which might be my "favourite"...
Wiseman_Vaughn
Well-known member
The Toon Army will all be there showing their thanks to their new owners.
Utter scum!
SmogOnTheTees
Well-known member
Costa rica, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Who, in England, wants to see any of those teams in a match that doesn't include England?
Last edited:
Piccadilly Day Tripper
Well-known member
Unravel_Morrison
Well-known member
If we ever ended up being owned (unlikely) by these, that would be done with the whole game I think.
Glover_elbow
Well-known member
Thats absolutely outstanding
Slipperutb01
Well-known member
More blood money
Manhead
Well-known member
Good on em, should be a decent game.