Why do authoritarian regimes like to buy English football clubs?

NEWCASTLE UNITED holds a tragi-comic place in the minds of English football fans. The club can seemingly make a mess out of any situation. Despite a large and passionate supporter base, it has not won the top division in nearly a century. The last time it came close, in 1996, it blew a 12-point lead and its manager, Kevin Keegan, had a public meltdown following some gentle taunting by Alex Ferguson, his rival at Manchester United. Despite its hapless history, on October 7th a consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, which is chaired by Muhammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s crown prince, announced it had bought the club for £305m ($415m) . It promises to bring some longed-for glory, paid for from its vast reserves of cash. Newcastle thus joins Chelsea and Manchester City as the latest Premier League team whose owners are linked to an autocratic government (not to mention others that have drawn up lucrative sponsorship deals with thuggish states, such as with Arsenal and Rwanda). Why are authoritarian regimes keen on English football clubs?

One reason is to project soft power. In her book, “Putin’s People”, Catherine Belton claims that Russia’s president directed Roman Abramovich, an oligarch who had become rich under his patronage, to buy Chelsea, a moderately successful west London team. (Mr Abramovich denies this.) The Kremlin, says Ms Belton, had decided that the way to gain acceptance in British society was via the country’s greatest love: football. “From the start the acquisition had been aimed at building a beach-head for Russian influence in the UK,” she writes. Owning a high-profile European club also gives regimes more clout within FIFA, the global game’s governing body. That may have proved useful when Russia successfully bid for the 2018 World Cup. The same goes for Qatar, which in 2011 bought Paris St Germain, France’s highest-profile side, and which will host the competition next year—despite many people arguing that a tiny, desert state with a questionable human-rights record is an unsuitable beneficiary of the event.

Amnesty International calls the Newcastle deal “a clear attempt by the Saudi authorities to sportswash their appalling human-rights record with the glamour of top-flight football”. The NGO cites the country’s penchant for locking up and harassing critics, its repression of women and the brutal state-backed murder in 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist. All of which may be true. But there is, still, a business case that can be advanced. England is home to the most-watched and richest domestic football league in the world. The Premier League’s latest deal with broadcasters—clubs’ biggest source of revenue—is worth an estimated £3.2bn ($4.4bn) a season, nearly double the €2.1bn ($2.4bn) that Spain’s top league brings in. Add in gate receipts, replica-kit sales and the like, and a football team can be a lucrative venture. In 2008 Sheikh Mansour, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family, is believed to have paid around £150m for Manchester City. The £2bn-plus he is estimated to have since spent on world-class players, coaches and facilities has brought the club five Premier League trophies. In 2019 he sold a smallish stake to a private-equity fund, which valued the whole club at £3.7bn.

As Newcastle is added to the growing list of super-wealthy English clubs, buying success will become harder. Clubs are also now somewhat limited by “financial fair play” rules which mean that, in general, they may not spend much more than they earn (although some wealthy owners have found inventive, so-far legal ways around this). The Premier League also bars states from being overly influential within its football clubs. It was this concern that stymied the Saudis’ previous bid for Newcastle in 2020. This time the league was assuaged by “legally binding” assurances that the kingdom will not interfere in the running of the club. Who says sport and politics shouldn’t mix?

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