TOMORROW AFTERNOON, Newcastle will compete in their first domestic cup final since 1999.
They lost back then, 2-0, to the Manchester United side that would go on to complete the treble days later and the Magpies will hope to gain some revenge on the Red Devils this weekend.
Remarkably, should they prevail, it would be their first-ever League Cup win, while their only other appearance in the final came in 1976.
They last won the FA Cup in 1955 and their most recent top-flight triumph was as far back as 1927.
John Hird is old enough to remember their last and only major European triumph — winning the Fairs Cup, which is often considered the predecessor to the Uefa Cup/Europa League, back in 1969.
However, if the Magpies do end the long trophyless run on Sunday, Gateshead-born Hird won’t be celebrating despite being a lifelong supporter of the club.
As a result of the October 2021 takeover of Newcastle by a Saudi-led consortium, Hird helped establish the Newcastle Fans Against Sportswashing group.
The first meeting consisted of around 30 people and it was conducted online during a pandemic-enforced lockdown. Since then, however, they have grown to almost 3,000 members.
From the outset, Hird and his colleagues faced opposition largely from fans who supported the Saudi bid and were eager to see the end of the much-maligned Mike Ashley era.
“I was quite taken aback that there was actually a petition that 100,000 people signed to let the deal go ahead,” Hird tells The42.
“As a campaign, we don’t advocate boycotting Newcastle. We see it as our club. I’ve seen a lot of owners in my time, I was a Newcastle fan first long before the Saudis came, and I’ll still be a fan after we get rid of them.
“Other people now would say they are ex-Newcastle fans, that they can’t stand the blood money, the money from the Saudi state that is funding the club.
“I see it as trying to get the club back. This is one of the things that some of the fanzines [claim]: ‘We’ve got our club back.’ No, they haven’t, they’ve sold it to Riyadh, so I say it’s my club and I want to get it back and have a different type of ownership.
“I was a big advocate back in the times of Ashley for fan ownership, more like the German model or Real Madrid or Barcelona where you have ‘socios’ and things like that.”
So although he still considers it the fans’ club, Hird won’t join in the celebrations should they overcome Man United.
“We’ve been talking about this and, one of the other guys in the campaign basically said: ‘There’s no glory winning like this.’
“And I agree, there’s no glory because it’s not all down to Eddie Howe. Eddie Howe is a good manager, but Newcastle have spent a lot. They wouldn’t have spent that money if they hadn’t got it from Saudi Arabia. That’s where the money comes from, what this regime represents.
“So I’ll not be celebrating if they win, because I don’t think we should be owned by a bloody dictatorship, it’s just simple. So it’s an ongoing fight.”
While Hird is encouraged by the momentum that the organisation has acquired in recent months, a sizeable number of Newcastle fans remain apathetic at best about the deeply problematic Saudi ownership.
He is critical of “people who should know better” for facilitating this state of affairs.
“The Northeast is predominantly Labour [supporters],” he explains. “So most of the people that represent Newcastle in parliamentary seats are Labour. And they’ve been wishy-washy on the issue, basically not saying anything.
“Then you’ve got the fanzine editors, fans groups, who’ve basically been blinded by the money, and thinking: ‘We can win things.’ And so they’re against human rights abuses, but they don’t say anything. So the majority of fans [look to] the representatives, the fanzines.
“And the other thing is the Northeast press, they’re like a giant megaphone for propaganda for the regime. We’ve had situations where figures from the regime went to St James’ Park and it’s reported without comment. ‘Such and such got a round of applause.’ But when you investigate who these people are, they are key figures in a bloody theocratic regime.
“So obviously, the local press is not saying anything about that.”
Hird also references a general feeling of powerlessness among the more educated and conscientious fans, though cites the pushback against the eventually aborted plans to establish a European Super League as an example of how football supporters genuinely have the potential to effect change.
“The very minimum that Newcastle fans could do before the final would be to say: ‘We don’t agree with what the regime is doing to people in Saudi Arabia,’” he adds.
Hird and co have also formed links with Saudi Arabian human rights organisations.
Last weekend, they delivered a letter to the desk of manager Eddie Howe. It was written by the brother of a man who faces torture and the threat of execution in Saudi Arabia and carries the message that “sportswashing kills”.
It encourages Howe to use his position of influence to speak up for Hassan Al-Rabea and others subject to torture, unfair trials, and execution in the hope that such words can save lives.
“You may think that in your position you cannot change the behaviour of governments,” Ahmad Al-Rabea writes in the letter, first reported by inews. “I don’t believe this is true. The truth is that your club is owned by a repressive regime and you and your players are employed by them. If you say nothing about the gross human rights abuses and violations we are suffering then this is an acceptance of these violations. If you speak out against them you can save lives.”
It is far from the only example of NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing attempting to raise awareness of uncomfortable truths.
In March last year, the Saudi government killed 81 people in a single mass execution.
“I’ll stick to football,” Howe, responding to queries on the subject, told reporters after his side’s 1-0 loss to Chelsea last season.
“I’m just going to answer questions on the game and football. I’m still bitterly disappointed with the defeat so I think it’s only right that I stick to football.
“I’m well aware of what’s going around the world but my focus is on trying to produce a team to win football matches, get enough points to stay in the league and that’s all I’ll say … I’m going to talk football. That’s all I’m concerned with.”
The Newcastle boss has generally refused to fully engage with moral questions surrounding the club’s ownership. Yet some fans are unwilling to ignore these atrocities.
They staged a silent protest during the side’s subsequent fixture against Chelsea at St James’ Park and unfurled banners with the faces of young people who were either executed or are facing the death penalty.
“We got a lot of threats,” says Hird. “Social media is one thing but loads of threats, even stuff from Saudi Arabia, from the bots and we were threatened physically. They said if you turn up at the ground, we’ll beat you up. You’ll get a good kicking.
“But we knew that the majority of fans, even though they wouldn’t agree with it, supported our right to protest, and that’s what happened.”
During the year the #Saudi dictators have been in control of #NUFC they executed 81 people before we played Chelsea & have jailed women for 34 & 45 years for tweeting.
— NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing (@NoSaudiToon) February 7, 2023
A @worflags banner in support of #Saudi women at #CarabaoCupFinal would be a belated but magnificant gesture. pic.twitter.com/EWipMtPGig
They have also spoken at human rights conferences and tried to call attention to the plight of people who are on death row, some of whom are under the age of 18.
“When we highlighted those cases, a lot of fans say: ‘Yeah, that’s terrible.’ But we come back to the fans and say look: ‘You’ve got to say something before the cup final.’ A lot of the fanzines, the fans’ organisations promised they would be critical of the regime, they promised that they would raise these issues.
“There’s an organisation, for example, called: ‘Wor Flags’ — ‘wor’ means ‘our’ in Geordie dialect. Before the takeover, they said: ‘If we thought Saudi women were being persecuted, we’d do a flag display.’ They (Wor Flags) said they would have a flag display with a Saudi woman dressed in a Newcastle football strip/top to highlight the persecution of Saudi women.
“So we’ve said to them: ‘Make good on your promises.’ But the problem is that a lot of the official fan groups have forgotten the promises that they made before the takeover.”
And of course, rather than being a Newcastle-specific issue, the influence of Saudi Arabia and other nation-states attempting to exert their influence through sportswashing is a football-wide problem.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, widely regarded as the two best footballers of the past decade, both have significant links to Saudi Arabia, with human rights groups consequently pleading with the duo to use their influence in a positive way.
A letter from the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights to #AlNassr's new player #CristianoRonaldo.#SaudiArabia pic.twitter.com/WvnwL4se37
— ESOHR (@ESOHumanRightsE) January 24, 2023
Families of the Saudi state’s victims have sent letters to both Messi and Ronaldo urging them to speak up, but thus far, these appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
Hird believes that if more high-profile people make a stand and the controversy becomes greater, meaningful change can occur.
“The feedback we’ve had from Saudi human rights activists is that MBS [Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia] and the dictatorship hate criticism.
“The execution of 61 people [at a conservative estimate] is pending so the only way you can save lives is actually saying something publicly. If we get these names out there, and we say the names of these young guys on death row, perhaps we could save their lives.
“We don’t think that Eddie Howe is in favour of what his employers are doing — obviously not. But does it mean that he can’t say something? It would be a massive gesture if he said something.”
The problem is unlikely to go away and if anything, it could become greater in the coming months. Man United and Liverpool are among the English teams that have been linked with Qatari and Saudi takeovers, though Hird has been encouraged by skeptical reactions from the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust and the Spirit of Shankly groups who both recently urged the British government to take a tougher stance on club ownership rules.
“It’s a question for the whole of football. If football allows another club to be owned by the state, a lot of fans will say: ‘This is the way it’s got to be. We need more money.’
“But it could spell a massive crisis for football in England, because what are we looking at?
“Are we looking at some sort of Middle East football arms race, where Qatar are pitted against Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi? What’s next? Will they allow China, the United States, Iran, and North Korea? It’s madness.
“Our campaign is not to normalise this idea that bloody repressive regimes can own our football clubs. Even though we’re a small voice, I think it’s a voice that’s getting louder, and it’s not going to go away.”
He continues: “Obviously the Premier League are going to fudge it, but we think there’s a lot of space and momentum behind this very simple campaign that states should not be allowed to own clubs, especially human rights abusing ones.
“So it could be out of Newcastle fans’ hands. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the Middle East. Look what’s happening in Iran, there’s a revolution of women there.
“At the moment the human rights organisations fear that they’re going to execute 61 people. Why are they executing so many people? 81 before the Chelsea match last season.
“It’s state terrorism, they’re terrorising the population. But the reason why they’re doing it is that obviously, there’s big opposition to the regime.”