Another request that the council made to Staveley following the takeover’s completion was for the board to “actively assist with Inward Investment visits”, with a suggestion that they could sponsor or contribute to a MIPIM trip.

MIPIM is a 4 day real estate conference held in Cannes every year in March. British Local Authorities have faced long-standing criticism for participating in the event, accused of attempting to sell off city centres and being “in the pockets of the investors” who attend. The MIPIM model is a good fit for the practices and people around Newcastle United. MIPIM creates a space for politics and investment to be organised around contacts and unaccountable personal connections, and for the ability to bring influential people together to be a decisive power. The decisions made at MIPIM all take place above the heads of ordinary people, and very often above the heads of their democratic representatives.

Despite the criticism, the investment promotion agency Invest Newcastle have been sending a delegation since 2016. Their website says that in 2022 that delegation included a strong presence from Newcastle City Council. New Chief Executive Pam Smith and Director of Place Michelle Percy were both amongst them. Prior to the conference, Percy sent an email to Jamie Reuben inviting him to speak on their panel, suggesting that he could address the topic of ambitions for the football club “from the point of view of continued investment – working with business, etc etc.” On the takeover’s completion, Reuben had said: “We will build a true community club, based upon our family’s knowledge of the city and in line with our plans that have been worked on closely with Newcastle City Council to deliver long-term sustainable growth for the area.”

So, you can see how Reuben would be a natural choice for the council to invite to speak at this event, but he sent a very non-committal 18-word reply:

Michelle,
If I make it to Mipim I would definitely be there and do what you need
Jamie(8)

This is the only time he features anywhere in the batch of emails we we able to access.

However, we can see the briefing document that the council sent to him regarding the conference – and it indicates the sky-high expectations the council had for Saudi investment following the takeover. Both Chief Executive Pam Smith and Director of Place Michelle Percy are listed as speakers at an event called “A £300M investment in Newcastle United Football Club”,(9) and the briefing includes a link to an article on the Premier League website celebrating the impact the two Premier League football clubs in Manchester have had on their local community. It also seems that a representative from Manchester may have been pencilled in provisionally to sit on the panel, suggesting that at that moment in time Manchester City Council’s experience with the Abu Dhabi ownership at Manchester City may have been seen as something of a model for Newcastle to emulate. Indeed, In October, Jonathan Silver, a senior research fellow at the University of Sheffield, told The Athletic:

One thing is the potential speed of this investment in Newcastle. If you’re already using Manchester as a model, things can be moved forward much quicker, because the blueprint is in place. If it was cobbled together in Manchester, it can be professionalised and accelerated here.

The Manchester model that, presumably, it was expected Newcastle would emulate has faced criticism for allowing Abu Dhabi to purchase large swathes of public land in Manchester at a fraction of its true value. No affordable housing has been built, and properties have become assets for international investors rather than homes, with income from rents flowing out of the region and, indeed, Britain more generally.

We can’t see any evidence that Staveley, Reuben or any board members went to MIPIM and engaged in 2022, but the council were back in Cannes in March 2023, and Staveley was definitely there this time – she was a keynote speaker, delivering a talk entitled “The role of sport investment in real estate development”.

Director of Place Michelle Percy emailed Staveley afterwards to tell her how enthused she had been by her contribution, and, unbeknown to the council’s constituents, she even suggested that Staveley could meet with the council once every 2 months so that she could have a “state of the nation overview” and “high level overview of the city and the region” which would give her “a chance to influence or be part of the work we are doing.”(10)

We do not know what work the council has completed that was influenced by Staveley, who obviously has not been elected or appointed to any local authority position.

It shouldn’t be necessary to issue a reminder that the main reason Staveley is in contact with council officials is her role as the frontwoman for one of the most despotic regimes on the planet. Not only that, she has also previously been subject to an Individual Voluntary Arrangement following a failed internet venture, and was recently been issued with a bankruptcy petition by a businessman. A recent indication of her character came when Staveley applied to the High Court to have the claim thrown out in March 2024. The judge in the case said that her evidence “ventures into the realm of fantasy and is completely implausible” that there was a “real lack of reality in her claim”, and that she relied on “bare assertions” which were “inherently implausible”. He added that her claims were “unsustainable” and had a “complete lack of credibility”. On 11th September 2024, Staveley’s company was liquidated after she failed to reach a settlement with her creditor, who successfully pursued a winding up petition instead.

Although this judgment was yet to be handed down when Staveley received the invitation to “state of the nation” meetings from Percy, in February 2021 the judge in a case she brought against Barclays Bank had accepted Barclays’ submission that “she had a tendency to exaggerate”. Staveley had also been caught out in January 2022, when previous owner Mike Ashley brought a claim against her, in the process revealing that she had funded her stake in the takeover by borrowing £30.5m from the Reuben brothers. Ashley then lent her a further £10 million on 7 October 2021 as she was “unable to meet the advisory, legal and other costs and commissions” required to complete the takeover. This was extremely embarrassing for Staveley because she had previously told reporters that she had obtained the funds by “selling a hotel in New York for £60m or so.”

Staveley has repeatedly made attempts to use her contacts in the Middle East to put together business deals. Sometimes this has been personally successful for her – for example, the takeover of Newcastle United, her role in Abu Dhabi’s takeover of Manchester City, and the part she played in putting together a rescue deal from Sheikh Mansour for Barclays Bank in 2008.

But sometimes her efforts have ended in failure, such as her takeover attempt at Liverpool involving Dubai International Capital, her earlier bid to lead a takeover at Newcastle, and her failure to realise any value from the management contract she held for a Yemeni telecoms group controlled by her client Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmar.

Given Staveley’s background, you would have expected a local authority to retain some distance from her, while treating her with a degree of caution. You would have expected them to be extremely mindful of the nature of the regime Newcastle United board members are representing. You would also have anticipated that, before lending public support to the takeover in 2020, the council would have carefully interrogated the promises of investment made by Staveley, who was clearly feeling under pressure at the time the promises were made, judging by her emotional state during her interview with George Caulkin. However, we haven’t been able to find any evidence that this happened, and we also cannot see evidence of any efforts from the council to make Staveley and the board account for their pre-takeover promises of investment. Instead the approach seems to have been to be as deferential and accommodating to her as possible in the hope that this behaviour will be rewarded, with the result that democratic processes are again undermined.

Preparations for the Saudi investment

We don’t have any details of the club’s possible involvement at MIPIM in March 2024, but in May 2024, a similar delegation went from Newcastle to Riyadh as part of a two day trade mission to Saudi Arabia, which was led by then Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden. The agenda for the trip shows that there are parallels to be drawn between the party from Newcastle’s visit to Riyadh and the trips to MIPIM in 2022 and 2023.

At MIPIM 2023, Staveley delivered her own keynote speech away from the Newcastle delegation, and she evidently enjoys the limelight at these events — in Riyadh she was scheduled to appear on stage twice: once for an event called “In conversation with Thomas Heatherwick and Amanda Staveley” and she was later interviewed by Louise Minchin on “The Power of Sport”. It was confirmed that the council’s Director of Place Michelle Percy and Chief Executive Pam Smith both went to Riyadh — both had been attendees at MIPIM as well. Meanwhile the delegation from Newcastle put the football club at the centre of their information pack, just as they had at MIPIM 2022, mentioning the takeover in the summary of their panel’s topic: “Newcastle upon Tyne: Building A Gateway to Saudi Through Innovative Trade and Investment”. In Riyadh, the connection to NUFC was further underlined by the presence of Becky Langley, the head coach of the women’s team on the panel. The club’s commercial director Peter Silverstone was not listed on the schedule, but joined the panel on the day, along with Ibrahim Mahtaseb, Chief Development Officer of Saudi events company Sela, who sponsor the team’s kit. Also present was Sarah Green, CEO of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, which oversees InvestNewcastle, the investment agency that had led the Newcastle trips to MIPIM. Green’s profile also noted that she is a non-executive director at local firm Ryder Architecture. The other 2 panelists were Professor Andy Long, VC and CEO at Northumbria University, and Alison Gwynn CEO of North East Screen, representing the TV and Film industry in the north east. The council’s letter to Staveley had expressed a desire for investment into universities, so Long’s presence continues that theme.

We can see that the delegations that went to Riyadh and the MIPIM events were more focused on the city of Newcastle than the north east as a whole. A comparison of both of these delegations from Newcastle shows how the city’s investment agencies, organisations for promoting local businesses and the council have coalesced in anticipation of Saudi investment. The city’s institutions chose to place the football club at the centre of their promotional material, but they don’t appear to have any direct connection to the Saudi government, instead relying on Staveley to provide this link. It remains to be seen how her absence will affect the approach to future events.

Investment Minister Lord Dominic Johnson was also present in Riyadh as a representative of the government. He had met Staveley and the party from Newcastle at the MIPIM conference on 16th March 2023, and during the meeting Staveley had secured a lunch with him, scheduled for 17th April. Beforehand the council provided her with a briefing containing a list of discussion points and calls to action.(11) Johnson has strong ties to a second identifiable group that represents north east business interests and is readying itself for Saudi investment. They are more focused on the north east as a whole rather than Newcastle, and unlike the first group, there is a public record of multiple direct communications and connections between them and a senior member of the Saudi Royal Family.

The council’s briefing stated that a working group had been set up with interested north east Organisations (universities, public sector and private companies) to explore potential trade and investment opportunities. This group was formed by the North East Economic Forum (NEEF), which is chaired by former Labour MEP Alan Donnelly. It was formed in 2004 and its website boasts of hosting the likes of David Cameron and Keir Starmer as speakers.

Council leader Nick Kemp did not accompany the delegation to Riyadh. While led the council from May 2022 until his resignation, he has also been the Head of Operations for NEEF since 2006. In addition to this, he spent four years working for the PA company Donnelly chairs between 2006 and 2010.

NEEF launched ‘The Saudi-North East England Trade and Investment dialogue’ with a dinner in Durham in May 2023. Following the dinner NEEF reported that the group will seek to “build new partnerships with Saudi Arabia around renewable energy, life sciences, tourism, health, education and skills”. The Saudi Ambassador to Britain Prince Khalid bin Bandar was in attendance.

Prince Khalid’s father is Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al-Saud, the main protagonist in the possibly the most corrupt deal of any sort in British history – he was paid more than £1 billion in bribes by BAE Systems as part of the al-Yamamah arms deal. In 2020, a US court ordered him to give evidence on his possible knowledge of the September 11th attacks.

The ambassador already has a prior link to the north east through his marriage to Lady Cuthbert, the niece of Ralph Percy, the current and 12th Duke of Northumberland. In this sense, Prince Khalid also has a connection to the Minister Staveley was due to meet, Lord Dominic Johnson. His uncle Nicholas Craig-Harvey, is married to Lady Julia, daughter of the Duke’s father Hugh Percy, the 10th Duke of Northumberland. This fact featured very prominently in the briefing document on Johnson that Staveley was handed. It seems that for this group, links to the Duke of Northumberland’s family are playing a more significant role in promoting the north east in Saudi Arabia than the ownership of NUFC. It should be noted that Director of Place Michelle Percy is no relation.

The briefing Staveley was given in advance of her meeting with Lord Johnson also refers to Newcastle hosting an inward delegation of 30 Saudi businesses focussed on clean technologies in March 2023. In the publicity released to accompany this meeting, Johnson expressed optimism about the prospect of Saudi investment in renewable energy in the north east. Prince Khalid was also quoted saying that Saudi Arabia wanted to generate half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. He added:

It’s no good for one country or two countries or ten countries to improve the environment. We need everyone to do it, otherwise we all lose.

There is something incongruous about a representative of an authoritarian petrostate appealing for a collective global effort to shift to renewable energy. The Saudi state has claimed that its promotion of green energy is part of their modernisation strategy, but the counterargument has been made that this is another form of reputation laundering. Critics point to contradictory messages from the Saudi government; in 2021 the state oil company announced plans to increase crude oil production, while also claiming to hold ambitions to become carbon neutral. Nonetheless the public endorsement of a senior Royal like Prince Khalid might be an indication of some intent. Prior to his statement, in October 2021, petrochemicals manufacturer Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced plans to invest almost £1 billion into a plant they own on Teesside, around 50 miles south of Newcastle, with the company saying that the investment was part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions. In March 2022, Saudi firm Alfanar announced another £1billion of investment to operate the Lighthouse Green Fuels Project at Port Clarence, Teesside. Although Green Energy might be identified as a primary interest for Alan Donnelly’s forum, he also revealed that he had been to Riyadh in September 2023 to discuss ‘possible link-ups in the health economy’. He said he had spoken to Prince Khalid since the visit. An outward visit to Saudi Arabia had been mentioned as one of the ‘calls to action’ in the briefing the council provided to Staveley prior to her meeting with Lord Johnson. Although we don’t know what came of the meeting between Johnson and Staveley, if anything, the two groups identified above clearly have overlapping interests, and it would be strange if Donnelly’s forum and Prince Khalid didn’t take some interest in the football club under its new ownership.

The Athletic reported that Prince Khalid asked Foreign Secretary James Cleverley for an update on the takeover’s progress in May 2020 and the Prince was also publicly thanked for attending a Newcastle home match in May 2022 by NUFC director Majed Al Sorour. Prince Khalid and Lord Johnson’s distant relative, The Duke of Northumberland, resides at Alnwick Castle 35 miles north of Newcastle, and his home has been used as a venue for NUFC board meetings on at least 2 occasions, one of which was filmed as part of the Amazon Prime Documentary and had chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan in attendance.

In March 2024, Newcastle United’s Chief Commercial Officer Peter Silverstone contacted CEO Pam Smith to invite her to a home match against West Ham, telling her that the CEO of Riyadh Airport was planning to attend. Based on that it seems possible that the prospect of direct flights between Riyadh and Newcastle is continuing to be explored – the idea had first been publicly mooted in the wake of the May 2023 North East Economic Forum event, although at the time of writing no announcement has been made confirming the proposed new flight routes are set to be put in place.(12)

While the pursuit of investment related to green energy could be identified as a flagship policy for the forum headed by Donnelly, it’s more difficult to say what the Newcastle-based group’s primary concern for Saudi investment is, largely because they seem to have achieved so little. However, the desire for investment related to commercial property deals is one theme that occurs repeatedly in their communications – it was prominent in the initial letter the council sent to Staveley on the takeover’s completion and was further shown by their presence at MIPIM. One of the bullet points in the briefing provided to Staveley boasts of the high property yield levels that foreign investors could expect in Newcastle (6.5%). Staveley and Michelle Percy also went to another real estate event in October 2023, attending the EG Awards at The Grosvenor House Hotel together.(13)

It is worth noting that the neoliberal model that the council appears to be pursuing here, with those in close proximity to Saudi purse strings significantly empowered, is not the only way key institutions can be involved in local development, there is now abundant work on the role of such “anchor institutions” in the so-called Preston Model and in Community Wealth Building.² The possibility of Saudi investment then drives priorities both for the council and for the strategies of such institutions, as well as empowering those close to it. But there are alternatives.

Surprisingly, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden had used his opening address at the summit in Riyadh to claim that $3 billion of investment from Saudi Arabia would be made in the north east, with the accompanying press release saying that news of the investment was based on new figures to be released by the Deputy PM, and would sustain 2000 jobs. This story came on the same day that some of the emails referred to in this article were highlighted in a BBC documentary, helping Dowden’s announce-ment generate enormous publicity locally. The Local Democracy Service asked the Cabinet Office to clarify what that investment relates to or where the affected jobs are, but they weren’t given a response. Nearly 5 months on, the figures Oliver Dowden referred to still haven’t been released, so we do not have any details at all on this investment, or whether it has anything to do with the city of Newcastle, the council, or the football club.

As with the takeover of the football club, vague promises of large scale “investment into the region” had the effect of partially nullifying criticism of Saudi involvement in the club and region. And, as with the takeover, the failure of any further details of this investment to emerge hasn’t been raised by either local politicians or media, despite the vital importance that this investment had previously been held to have. The paucity of effective media scrutiny of the takeover has been a recurring theme over the last three years. Campaigners have long complained about the failure of the British press to properly examine the nature of this country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia – maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that this has been replicated on a local level. The lack of information means it is only possible to speculate on what Dowden had been referring to, but the briefing the council prepared for Staveley ahead of her meeting with Lord Johnson noted that “the North East” had fed into discussions when the British government had consulted on the post-Brexit trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council, prior to the fourth round of negotiations taking place in July 2023.

The sixth round of negotiations took place in February this year and the Conservative government had made it known that they felt positive about the progress of these talks, although the goal of completing the discussions before the General Election was not met.

So, it is possible that the council and other interested local parties might feel that the new links to Saudi Arabia through the football club could be used to put the region in a position to benefit when the deal is eventually struck. In The Athletic, Alan Donnelly indicated that he believes the north east was now in position to ‘receive first-mover advantage’ from any deal with the GCC.

Is it possible that Dowden had lifted a proposal that was being discussed at the trade talks and presented it as imminent?

If that eventually turns out to be the case then it will probably be argued that any investment has resulted from a successful strategy to attract Saudi investment that involved using the football club. But this still would not be at all close to what Staveley promised when she was urging local politicians to support the takeover.

While we have heard plenty from local business leaders, groups, and politicians on the nature of the investment they would hope to see, we have heard nothing specific from the owners themselves. Even though, as Jonathan Silver has pointed out, the roll-out of an investment plan — even one extremely limited in terms of meeting local needs — should have been relatively simple with Manchester as a model, more than halfway into Staveley’s 5-year plan, we can see that this demonstrably has not been replicated in Newcastle. A recent factsheet produced by the Department of Business and Trade showed that no statistical region in Britain currently does less trade with Saudi Arabia than the north east.

Underwhelming investment

Even though the large scale investment into the city has yet to arrive, the football club has taken some actions which have resemblance to the requests the council made on the takeover’s completion.

In their initial letter to Staveley the council had expressed a desire for the club to play an “active role in the international promotion of the city, helping secure investment for major projects.” On 13th October 2022 Michelle Percy emailed club CEO Darren Eales, introducing him to the Chief Executive of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, and asked if he could help with a bid they were making for funding from Visit Britain’s International Gateway, something which has also been mentioned in the briefing provided to Staveley for her meeting with Minister Johnson.(14) Eales eventually replied on 25th October after being chased for a response, agreeing to provide a letter of support and offering a meeting.(15) Maybe this was of some help – in January 2023 NGI announced that they had been awarded £700,000 in funding from VisitBritain to “market and promote North East experiences to inbound visitors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates”. They acknowledged that the campaign was supported and backed by Newcastle International Airport, North of Tyne Combined Authority, Visit County Durham, Visit Northumberland, and Newcastle United Football Club, as well as booking partners WeGo. Although this might have been useful, the council’s initial communications following the takeover suggested that they had far higher expectations of the club than the submission of a letter to support a bid.

You could also argue that the club has done something to fulfil the council’s stated desire for them to “consider investment into St James development and other city centre sites”. On 15th February 2023, Michelle Percy wrote to NUFC CEO Darren Eales to bring the city’s Business Improvement District NE1 to his attention. She explained that NE1 represented 1400 businesses, and in her view it was important that the BID and the club had a strong relationship.(16)

In June 2023 Chief Commercial Officer Peter Silverstone and CEO Darren Eales joined Michelle Percy for a meeting entitled “Hold Strawberry Place – Confidential”, and on 27th July it was reported that Stack had submitted plans to build a new fanzone made of shipping containers at Strawberry Place next to St James’ Park, on land owned by NUFC. The venue opened on 8th August 2024. It is a temporary structure that will remain in place for 3 years while the club decides what to do with the land.(17) (18) Shortly before Silverstone and Eales’ met with Percy, on 23rd May 2023, Stephen Patterson the CEO of NE1 had told the BBC about the positive affect the takeover has had from his point of view:

In recent times licensees have been telling us of double digit growth in terms of their customers on match days, so if you go back two or three years, that’s really positive

You could only imagine that a new fanzone serving alcohol beside the ground would negatively affect those figures, and 59 businesses that rely on matchday revenue objected to the plans. Prior to the development’s eventual approval in October 2023, it had to overcome objections from Northumbria Police, two councillors, and the council’s own environmental health department also raised concerns. Was this really the investment into the St James’ area that the council had hoped for? It certainly isn’t investment that will have positive knock-on effects, with it more likely that money spent on alcohol will be taken out of the local economy rather than circulated through it.

The emails also allow us to see that there are also a number of local business leaders who may have been left feeling slightly disappointed by their engagement with the new ownership at NUFC.

The council had expressed a desire for NUFC to establish relationships with other sporting clubs in the region, and one of the first people to make contact with Staveley was Semore Kurdi, owner of the struggling Newcastle Falcons rugby team. The takeover had only been completed on 7th October, but he had already managed to obtain an introduction to Amanda Staveley via council leader Nick Forbes on 12th October. As yet, nearly 3 years on, no Saudi investment has been forthcoming for the Newcastle Falcons, although Kurdi still appears to be attempting to engage with the club’s ultimate owners.(19) (20) On 18th February 2024 a photo of Kurdi and Falcons chairman Matt Thompson meeting Saudi officials was posted to Thompson’s Instagram account. Falcons consultant director of rugby Steve Diamond provided the press with an update on 20th April 2024:

The chairman, Semore Kurdi and rugby chairman Matt Thompson went out to meet the dignitaries. They’re interested in forming an academy in Saudi Arabia and they’d like Newcastle to be their partner. It’s not the same people as the football club.

In March he had said:

They’re embracing many sports at the moment and they want rugby to be a focus point in Saudi Arabia. That’s what the discussions were about. It wasn’t about going there, opening the war chest and saying: “Steve, go and buy the All Black team.” I’d like that but I don’t think that’s happened.

Another business that was keen to contact Staveley was north east firm Ryder Architecture. They contacted Michelle Percy on 17th May 2022, angling for a meeting with Staveley and touting their credentials. Percy then passed on their details with a glowing reference, highlighting the close working relationship she’d had with the firm’s leader over many years.(21) (22) Two months later, on 5th July 2022, Craig Hope reported that impressive plans for a new training ground had been drawn up for a site at Parklands just to the north of the city centre, and Ryder Architecture were involved. But at the time of writing, a site for the training ground has yet to be decided on, and there has been barely any progress on either a new stadium or renovating the existing one either.

On 8th December 2022, Michelle Percy emailed Darren Eales to say that the commercial director of the company which owns the Utilita Arena in the city centre was keen to make contact, as it had “not been lost on them” how they might work with the club. The possibility of a new stadium for NUFC has been the topic of much discussion over the last 2 and a half years, and the city centre land that the Arena sits by has often been identified as one of the most suitable sites for a new ground. Although Percy writes here “I did say the club are committed to staying put!”, Eales refused to rule out a new stadium at a later fan’s forum on 26th November 2023, and he has let it be known that ‘all options are being considered’ in an ongoing stadium feasibility study that the club is conducting.(23) But on 15th February 2024, it was announced that much of the land by the Arena had been purchased by Homes England, almost certainly making it impossible to build a stadium in this location.

There were a few more minor plans floated by the council to the club that never seemed to come to fruition either. On 29th November 2022, Percy contacted Darren Eales asking about the possibility of a friendly with French team AS Nancy, the team of the French city Newcastle is twinned with.(24) And on 9th October 2023, Percy forwarded Staveley some information on a businessman who was looking to open a golf academy in Newcastle. Percy thought that “it might tie into some of the important areas” Staveley is supposedly working on, but Staveley simply replied “Sounds interesting… Thanks for sharing”, and nothing more seems to come of this.(25)

The council leader’s request for Saudi investment

But perhaps the biggest disappointment inflicted on the council by Staveley and NUFC will have been her response to a request from then council leader Nick Kemp, which he himself said would have been “the first of its kind globally” had it been acted on. He hadn’t had any role in drafting the council’s initial letter to Staveley, and he came up with a proposal that his predecessor hadn’t considered. With Winter in 2022 approaching, Kemp wrote to Staveley following up a meeting he had held with her and Eales in which he had raised the issue of child poverty in Newcastle. Kemp was now asking for support to address the problem. He wrote:

I am reaching out to you and your board to support my request to deliver a hot meal each day for school age children.(26)

We later read that the cost of delivering this program would have been £23.6m. Obviously NUFC is owned by the Saudi state, meaning that this is likely to be the first time that an English Local Authority has ever asked a foreign government to deliver universal school free meals for its school children. In my view it is highly unlikely that the Saudi government would ever have any interest in feeding children in the north east of England. Amongst a number of other things, youth unemployment in Saudi Arabia was at around 16% in 2022 and had been close to 30% just a few years prior to that. In recent years the Saudi state has imprisoned and sentenced to death at least 9 young men for crimes committed when they were children.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the answer Staveley gave in her reply on 10th October 2022 was a negative one, but she gave a different reason to the one outlined above.(27) Staveley said that as this policy would have cost up to £23.6 million to fund, “it was necessary that we spoke to not only the board but our shareholders”, meaning majority shareholders PIF – once again underlining who really controls NUFC. This also indicates that she may have been able to deliver the lower cost requests that the council made without consulting the Saudi majority owners.

Staveley goes on to say that “The club wishes to provide significant support; however, we want to ensure that that any gift provides sustained support – and not just a short-term fix. It is a widely held view, including research from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) that the only sustainable food program is to get kids to learn to cook.”

CPAG have actually consistently advocated for universal free school meals.

Staveley then goes on to outline her own alternative ‘cooking in schools’ and slow cooker distribution programme, to potentially be supported by NUFC players, Ant and Dec, Sam Fender and the Hairy Bikers. The discussions around feeding children in and around Newcastle share a great deal with much of the rest of the connections between the council and the club. Firstly, on the side of Staveley and others, the extreme lack of serious thought, these are not serious proposals for feeding children, these are not people taking it seriously. Secondly, the reluctance to spend any money, whether the argument (including the dishonest misrepresentation of the position of CPAG) is genuinely held by Staveley, related to her other beliefs, or is merely an expedient to absolve the club, and ultimately Saudi Arabia, from spending money, is irrelevant, self-interest is deeply entangled with the argument. Thirdly, there is the anti-democratic emphasis on leveraging connections and working through back channels as the alternative to spending money to meet needs. Finally, there is the inability or unwillingness of the council to push back effectively against refusals, although, as we will see, unlike in other situations an effort was made by a local politician.

Obviously, children do not cook their own school meals – so to ensure that each child gets a hot meal Staveley proposes that “The pupils would learn to cook food at school, then take ingredients home each Friday. Each child gets 2 packs to cook at home.”

This proposal of hers was never put into action, and as her overall reply fell some way short of Kemp’s hopes, you would think that this would also have been an opportune moment for Staveley to refer to some specific details of the “massive plans to invest in the city, housing, everything” that she had mentioned in July 2020. This doesn’t happen either, but perhaps Council Leader Nick Kemp and Chief Executive Pam Smith had remembered the reference to housing, because there seems to have been some attempt to get PIF involved in social housing provision. In an earlier letter to both of them from Staveley dated 20th September 2022, with the subject title: ‘RE: Meals Proposal and Social Housing’, Staveley thanks them for taking the time to hold a discussion with them, and writes “On Affordable Housing / Shared Ownership, I’ll reach out on Thursday with a more detailed follow up”.(28)

We don’t have any further details on what the proposal may have involved. But a few weeks after this, on 2nd November 2022, Kemp found himself embroiled in difficulties related to housing provision when The Chronicle reported that a construction firm called Orca Housing had been stripped of a building contract by the council, after it was found ‘not to be meeting the required contractual performance’. This mattered to Kemp because he had lobbied council staff on Orca’s behalf prior to becoming leader, telling them that Orca offered a “fantastic opportunity” for them.

His LinkedIn profile stated that he had been Orca’s “Director of New Business and Housing Strategy”, but it was later clarified that he wasn’t actually employed by the company, although they were a client of his PA company, NKA Public Affairs. This distinction led the council to conclude that Kemp had not broken any rules by failing to declare his links to Orca on the register of interests.

After losing the contract Orca went into liquidation in March 2023, and the council ended up spending more than £4m to finish work they had failed to complete. Did the shared ownership proposal that Kemp put to the club involve the distressed company he represented at the time?

The emails we have seen don’t give any indication that this proposal ever came to anything either. However, Kemp seems to have been determined to get some sort of commitment to help with child poverty from the club, and he doesn’t seem to show the same deference to the NUFC board that we see from others at the council. He sends another email to Staveley on 25th November 2022, once again pursuing a young people’s meals programme.(29) This results in a response from Darren Eales 5 days later, finally setting out what the club are prepared to do in this area. He says that they have created a programme of community support this winter to deal with the issues Kemp has raised, and the club are also planning a cash donation to the West End Foodbank.(30)

Eales eventually summarises what the club’s offer is:

Broadly speaking, the activity is focused around five themes, with scope for additional Council involvement:
• Deeper support for West End foodbank
• Donations from our players towards Christmas gifts for children battling illness and injury in our cities hospitals
• Opening up areas of St James’ Park and the NU:CASTLE building as warm, safe spaces.
• A staff volunteer scheme that will prompt our full-time employees to free up a day’s work to divert to supporting local charities – equivalent to a donation of thousands of hours of time.
• A series of initiatives to reward and spotlight those in the community who are going above and beyond to make a difference this Christmas.

This is some way short of the £23.6m donation towards food from the Saudi state and apparent plans around shared ownership that the council were initially hoping for, but on 14th December Newcastle United launched the Helping Hand at Christmas campaign, when the proposals were put into practice, along with a £150,000 donation to the foodbank. Elsewhere in his letter, Eales underlines the club’s lack of interest in making the large-scale financial contribution to community schemes that Kemp was clearly hoping for. He expresses his desire that this charitable work doesn’t have to fall to the football club alone, writing “we would be hopeful that by drawing attention to the work we are doing as a club, then other businesses in the community will follow our lead”.

In the letter justifying the lack of financial support for feeding children, Eales presented the council with some lines that had echoes of a familiar argument:

Our club is a central part of the city’s economy – creating £236m of economic activity in the area every year, supporting more than 2,000 jobs as well as generating a total tax contribution of £89m. This is based on a study conducted for the club by EY four years ago, and I would expect the number to be much higher today.

That study had been completed in 2019 when previous owner Mike Ashley still controlled the club. In 2015, The Guardian had shed some light on Ashley’s mindset prior to the study’s completion, writing that “The club believe[s] the council has no place interfering in its commercial decisions, and argues it brings money, tourism and profile to Newcastle”. Affirming this belief is likely to be the reason Mike Ashley commissioned the study, and it may have been a surprise for the council to read the EY study being quoted to them by the new ownership.

Kemp was questioned by the council’s Lib Dem opposition leader about the reports on his plan for the free school meals scheme in July this year. He said that he would “make no apology” for attempting to implement the scheme. He wasn’t asked about his plan for getting the club involved in social housing and offered no explanation for it. We have recently been given a good reason why Kemp should reconsider his decision not to apologise. In June this year, Manchester City made a claim against the Premier League complaining that the league’s Fair Market Value rules were unlawful. As part of the claim, they argued that the present rules limit their ability to buy players and force them to charge fans more for tickets, before going on to say that they may have to cut spending on community programmes. It doesn’t really seem plausible that Manchester City would have to make these cuts to community programmes, but the threat was made anyway. If clubs are prepared to use their community work as leverage to resolve disputes, as Manchester City appear to be doing here, it follows that if Kemp’s plans had come to fruition, and school meals and housing were provided by Newcastle United, he would have created the potential for an absurd possible future scenario where people are left wondering whether a dispute between their local football club and the league they play in will affect their access to essential services.

The council’s stance on human rights in Saudi Arabia since the change in the club’s ownership

When answering the council’s opposition leader’s questions over the meals scheme, Kemp had also said that “we have enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Newcastle United.” While the council has had a long relationship with the football club, it hasn’t always been a good one. Before the takeover in October 2021, the club under Mike Ashley’s ownership showed little to no interest in engaging with the local community, and at times relationships with the council could even be personally hostile.

Kemp’s predecessor Nick Forbes has recounted one occasion when NUFC’s Managing Director Derek Llambias came to visit his civic centre offices in 2012:

Before I had even got out of my chair his finger was jabbing in my face. He said: ‘Who the fucking hell do you think you are?’ I have to say I was taken aback.

Llambias was so angry at Forbes because the council under his leadership had unanimously passed a motion asking Mike Ashley to reverse his decision to rename St James’ Park. When the club began a sponsorship deal with a payday loan company, Forbes told the media that he was “very angry”. He also criticised the club’s links to Ashley’s Sports Direct company, which had made headlines due to its exploitation of workers.

When the Saudi Public Investment Fund took control of the club, many local politicians and fan groups vowed to take a similar stance with the new ownership. In March 2020, then Labour MP for Gateshead Ian Mearns spoke at an online fans forum and said “Having Mike Ashley as owner hasn’t stopped me criticising him for football and non-football matters. Why would we not criticise any new owner if that criticism is deserved?” Labour councillor and current cabinet member Marion Williams also spoke at the meeting. She echoed Mearns’ comment, saying that she would be “first amongst many to call people out” when it came to human rights abuses. She also said that “as Saudi Arabia comes out into the western world.. they are addressing human rights… and if we can play a role in bringing a country out of its darkest practices and free up human rights for people there, then Newcastle will be proud”.

The argument that we could somehow help Saudi Arabia ‘modernise’ themselves through their ownership of our football team was made quite frequently prior to the takeover’s completion. It is an idea that is completely at odds with the role that the British government plays in its relationships with Gulf States, where Britain has consistently and willingly supported the repressive regimes that inflict human rights abuses on their populations, most notably in Saudi Arabia. As David Wearing has put it, considering the history of Britain’s relationship with the Gulf Arab monarchies, including Saudi Arabia,

Far from being a simple encounter between the liberal democratic West and the autocratic East, the Anglo-Arabian relationship was one of governing elites in Britain and the Gulf making common cause…to the benefit of both British power and monarchical rule in the region.³

In return for this support, Britain gets a supply of oil to the West at reasonably predictable prices. A large portion of the money paid to the Gulf States in return for the transfer of their natural resources to the West is then put back into banks in the City of London, and from there much of that money can be invested in British commercial interests and services.

More importantly, around half of all Britain’s defence sales are made to the Middle East and North Africa, and the largest customer is Saudi Arabia. This trade is centred on the Al Yamamah deal, the spectacularly corrupt agreement struck between Britain and Saudi Arabia, which was signed by Prince Khalid’s father, and has been repeatedly renewed, secret payments were still being made as recently as 2017. The arms trade with Gulf States ensures that Britain retains a military-industrial base large enough to retain its status as a global military power. Wearing stresses the importance of Al Yamamah in

The way in which Gulf petrodollars were available, through Britain’s long-standing relationship with Saudi Arabia to fund an enormous export order for the British arms industry, and industry whose health is vital to Britain maintaining its role as a global military power.⁴

Wearing also notes, and it is quite possible one could now include the ownership of Newcastle United in this, the role of the contract in forging relationships “at several levels of the British military-industrial-political complex and its counterparts in the Saudi system.”⁵

The military equipment and personnel sent to the conservative regimes in the Gulf are then used against the wider populations. One of the largest popular uprising in the Gulf in 2011 was in Bahrain, which saw up to one third of the population on the streets in largely peaceful protests demanding their rights. The protesters were brutally dealt with by a regime force dominated by Saudis, who were trained and armed by the British. BAE systems also supplied the Saudi government with military hardware used by Saudi Arabia during the war in Yemen, killing thousands and causing a massive humanitarian crisis.

The close and long-lasting nature of this relationship with Saudi Arabia’s ruling family is reflected in Prince Khalid’s early life. Like other Gulf royals, he was educated at Eton, Oxford, and Sandhurst, and has even consolidated his ties to this country through marriage. Human rights issues in the Gulf have never been a genuine concern for the British government, and any criticisms that were voiced by ministers over the human rights abuses in Bahrain and Yemen are hugely outweighed by the supporting role the Britain played in allowing these abuses to happen to the point where Wearing argued, Yemen

Should be a leading priority for the British left because the British state is playing a leading, enabling role in causing the disaster. When Yemeni civilians are killed it is often by British-supplied bombs and missiles dropped from British-built planes flown by British-trained pilots, and with maintenance provided on the ground by British technicians.

Have Newcastle City Council and local MPs taken a different approach to human rights in Saudi Arabia?

NUFC’s strip currently advertises two sponsors that are linked to the Saudi Public Investment Fund. One of those sponsors is an e-commerce provider called Noon that forces workers to endure slave labour conditions. Last season’s second strip and the previous season’s 3rd strip were both in the colours of the Saudi national team, and the team’s 3rd strip is green and white again this season. The first team have also been on training camps to Saudi Arabia where they’ve played matches against Saudi sides. But no one from the council has ever commented on any of these things.

In September 2023 Saudi activist Lina al-Hathloul visited Newcastle in advance of friendly matches the Saudi national side were playing in Newcastle. Lina’s sister is Loujain al-Hathloul, a campaigner for woman’s rights who has been arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Saudi government. Lina is a renowned activist in her own right, and before her visit letters requesting meetings to discuss human rights in Saudi Arabia were written to all 78 Newcastle City councillors and Tyneside MPs, but only three local politicians agreed to meet with her. One MP has actually spoken out in opposition to those of us protesting against the Saudi state’s involvement in Newcastle United. In April 2024 local paper The Chronicle quoted Nick Brown, who was still Labour MP for Newcastle East at the time. Brown is a long-standing former Labour Party associate of North East Economic Forum chairman Alan Donnelly. Both worked for Tom Burlison in the north east at the GMB union in the 1980s. The pair have worked together and supported each other on many issues over the decades since. Nick Kemp is also a GMB member, and before working for Donnelly at NEEF he had an 8-year stint working for Brown as a research and policy manager.

Brown had barely spoken in public on any topic for a number of months, but he felt compelled to break his silence to comment on our campaign, saying:

I do not approve of or support the approach that this campaign group is taking… I think it is very unfair for them to always focus on Newcastle United FC when discussing the commercial and industrial holdings of the Saudi Arabian investment vehicles. I think this is the wrong way to go about consolidating relationships between our country and Saudi Arabia.

With the North East Economic Forum’s aspirations for attracting Saudi investment seemingly reliant on their relationship with Prince Khalid, perhaps Brown’s stance shouldn’t be unexpected.

Former Council leader Nick Forbes and former Chief Executive Pat Ritchie have proven to be correct when they told Staveley shortly after the takeover that “human rights issues will continue to surface”, with the rate of executions and the severity of punishments in Saudi Arabia continuing to increase significantly in the years since the takeover’s completion. However, the council do not seem to have made any effort to establish a forum on human rights issues, as had been suggested in the initial meeting with Staveley.

The council has only made three public comments regarding the club’s ownership since the takeover – the first two of them following direct appeals from NUFCFAS.

The first was in September 2023, when the council made the following comment in advance of the Saudi Arabia v Costa Rica Match that took place at St James’ Park:

The city council has no powers to intervene in sporting matches or events at St James’ Park as the club has a long lease to use it as a sports stadium. As a city, Newcastle has a diverse, inclusive, and tolerant culture and we expect all organisations based here to share those values.
Newcastle United Football Club is making a huge contribution on and off the pitch to the city both socially and economically which is why we have recognised their achievements at civic receptions on two occasions in recent months for both the men and women’s teams.
We are a proud City of Sanctuary and while we have huge concerns over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, we do not think it is right or fair to blame anyone involved in the day-to-day management of the club with human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. However, we hope and expect that the Prime Minister and his government will take every opportunity to raise these important issues in Saudi Arabia at a government level.

The statement was careful not to offend Staveley, and referenced Newcastle’s City of Sanctuary status, which had also been referred to in the council’s discussion with Staveley shortly after the takeover.

On 19th April 2024 local paper The Chronicle reported another comment made by the council. Like the first statement, it referred to the City of Sanctuary status, while repeating that “we do not think it is fair to blame those involved in the day-to-day management of Newcastle United, themselves a Football Club of Sanctuary, with alleged human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia.” The council also repeated that taking up human rights issues with Saudi Arabia was “not the role of a local authority”, but that it hoped the Government would “continue to take opportunities to raise these”.

And the third statement was made to The Guardian in May, in response to media coverage of the emails in this article, and much of it was also almost identical to the previous statements as well, although this time the council added:

Like local authorities across the country we will always look at opportunities to drive investment and growth to benefit all our residents. Newcastle is not alone in this.
International investment creates jobs, opportunity and boosts the city economy. It is an important responsibility, one we take seriously and we will continue to work collaboratively to attract international investment from across the world.

The three statements were made over a 9-month period, and they are so similar that it’s hard not to suspect that they have been drafted from the same template.

The tone the council shows towards the club’s representatives in their statements is also reflected in the council’s email exchanges with Staveley. Council leader Nick Kemp takes a mildly adversarial approach when pressing the board for help around Child Poverty. On 8th December 2022 he challenges Eales when he cancels a meeting and gets him to reschedule.(31) Aside from that, the tone of email exchanges between the council and the NUFC board members can sometimes seem deferential and overly familiar.

On 18th October 2021, Interim Chief Executive Tom Warburton wrote to Staveley asking for a “short meeting or coffee” saying that “We’d be happy to travel to London if that’s easier for you”.(32) Nearly a month later, when Staveley eventually replies saying they were “concentrating on the club at the moment”, Warburton doesn’t press further, responding that “We completely understand your focus on the club at the moment – but when you are ready to have a wider conversation regarding the city please contact us”.(33)

Director of Place Michelle Percy peppers her correspondence with Staveley with personal comments. In December 2023 when Staveley writes to say she won’t be at a meeting, she replies “Bless you. Love to see you but honestly you do so much – it’s a juggle. This time passes like a flash x I will keep you briefed. X”(34) Earlier Staveley had written to her “Just landed darling – you’re amazing”, to which Percy replies “Not as amazing as you!”(35) Club CEO Darren Eales’ correspondence with her can take a similar tone. He writes to her on 7th February offering her a ticket for the Carabao Cup Final, giving her the chance to purchase an additional ticket – certainly not an opportunity afforded to ordinary supporters under the club’s current ticketing scheme. Percy appears to decline the offer, with Eales replying “I wish there were more people like you in the world 😊”(36)

Maybe it is slightly unfair to highlight this – email correspondence isn’t always going to be a true reflection of the nature of people’s relationships, and you could say that Percy’s position means that she needs to ensure she is on good terms with stakeholders. But it was Percy who conveyed to Staveley the council’s offer of bi-monthly “state of the nation” meetings, with the aim of allowing her to influence the council’s work. And we can see that the council’s relations with Staveley became very familiar less than a month after the takeover’s completion, when then leader Nick Forbes contacted her to let her know that they had received the first Freedom of Information request referred to in this article. Forbes advised her that “We are minded to disclose the email threads attached, but wanted to make you aware and to give you an opportunity to make any observations.”(37) Happily for Forbes, Staveley voiced no objections, replying: “Please do feel free to distribute the minutes and emails as you feel appropriate”. The council went ahead and fulfilled its statutory duty to respond, although they missed the required 20 working day response timescale by more than two weeks.(38)

How relations with central government and local businesses have been altered by the takeover

It isn’t only the council who appear to be overly accommodating towards Newcastle United board members – similar criticism could be aimed at the former Prime Minister’s Office. In July 2023 the British government invited Crown Prince bin Salman to the British, with then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saying he hoped to meet “at the earliest opportunity”. The Financial Times said that it was hoped that the visit would take place in October or November, although a British government official also said that the timing of the visit was “more up to them, given we need them more than they need us.”

At the time of writing, the visit still hasn’t been scheduled, so you can understand the desire that some of the Prime Minister’s special advisors might have to meet with one of bin Salman’s right-hand men, the governor of the Public Investment Fund and chairman of Newcastle United Yassir Al-Rumayyan. He was personally selected for his role by bin Salman, who also bought him a $60m mansion by his palace.

The government advisor who appeared willing to entertain Staveley’s request for assistance with the Tyne Bridge funding mentioned the possibility of a meeting with Al-Rumayyan when he responded. As he did so, he referred to al-Rumayyan as “HE” (His Excellency). Both the Newcastle United Supporters Trust and the club itself have been widely mocked for using this title when referring to the Chairman, but it seems at least one government advisor felt the need to do this as well. The day after the advisor sent that email, news broke that Al-Rumayyan was being sued in a Canadian Court for allegedly “having carried out the instructions” of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), with “the malicious intent” of “harming, silencing and ultimately destroying” the family of the country’s former intelligence chief. Although north east journalists ignored the story, it was widely reported in national and international media, so the advisor will have been immediately aware of the allegations. Would this have deterred him from seeking a meeting with Al-Rumayyan?

In my opinion it is doubtful whether or not Staveley would have been indulged if she did not have a clear link to Al-Rumayyan, and she is not the only Newcastle board member who may have benefited in this way. Newcastle United CEO Darren Eales met a Downing Street Official at the 4-1 win over Paris St Germain on 4th October, and they exchanged contact details afterwards, with Eales writing to him on 5th October 2023, saying that he is an “official lucky mascot” and it had been a pleasure to meet him.(39)

A look at the records of hospitality received by special advisors to the PM’s office shows that Business and Investment Advisor Franck Petitgas had been in attendance at the match. Petitgas is a former executive at Morgan Stanley who Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed as his business and investment adviser in April 2023. Sunak also elevated him to the House of Lords in February of this year. Would he have travelled to Newcastle if there hadn’t been an opportunity to meet al-Rumayyan?

Nearly two months later, on 28th November, the Downing Street Official contacts Eales again to say that he will be in Newcastle meeting business leaders on 4th and 5th December. Petitgas had been in Newcastle visiting the Sage UK offices at around this time.(40) The advisor suggests he and Eales could have dinner and lets him know that there will be a number of officials from 10 Downing Street with him. He leaves other details up to Eales, asking if he thinks there “are any other business people you think it would be helpful for us to meet?”(41) (42)

Interestingly, the advisor corresponding with Eales in November 2023 ends his emails with a distinctive “As ever” sign-off – something they have in common with the advisor that responds to Staveley’s email in February 2024 regarding the Tyne Bridge. That advisor had mentioned the Davos summit, which Petitgas is reported to have attended. It falls to Eales, Amanda Staveley and the council’s Director of Place Michelle Percy to put forward some names to meet the delegation from the Prime Minister’s Office for dinner.(43) We once again see the influential position Staveley seems to be in, as she liaises with 10 Downing Street and the council to decide which people from north east business will get to meet senior ministers. Percy once again looks favourably on her long-standing acquaintance at Ryder Architecture, and she also nominates the CEO of Greggs and someone from Creative Assembly. We don’t know what criteria she applied or why others were deemed unsuitable.(44)

It was inevitable that local businesses would seek to put themselves in the most advantageous position possible to benefit from the takeover following its completion, and Ryder Architecture seem to be better placed than most. It has already been noted above that Sarah Green is a non-executive director at Ryder, as well as being the CEO of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, which oversees InvestNewcastle. This is the investment agency that had led the Newcastle trips to MIPIM and Green was part of the delegation that went to Riyadh. The firm’s managing director Mark Thompson also sits on the 7 person board of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative, as does Pam Smith, Newcastle City Council’s CEO. Thompson was also photographed at the North East Economic Forum’s dinner with Prince Khalid in May 2023.

Days after the takeover’s completion, interim Chief Executive Tom Warburton emailed Staveley to welcome her to the city. He was keen to point out that both he and Michelle Percy “have been actively involved with the city council’s dealing with the Reuben’s landholding in the city – both the racecourse and on Pilgrim Street.”(32) Percy was featured in the council’s publicity for the project at Pilgrim Street, and the publicity notes that Ryder Architecture had provided the work on the architectural design.

It was noted earlier in this article that Percy had emailed Amanda Staveley recommending the firm to her. Her endorsement was largely based on her own personal view of the firm’s leader.(21) She wrote:

[redacted] is a huge critical friend and I have worked with him for many years, both private sector and public sector and he has been a source of encouragement, mentoring, leadership and challenge (in a good way) – our city is far better for it and he leads with energy and commitment – so I wanted to introduce him directly, see below. I rely on his advice and trust him implicitly. I think you would enjoy working with him if there is an opportunity.

Below Percy’s text was a copy of an email from Ryder Architect’s leader which was sent on to Staveley. It set out some previous projects he’d worked on and was just 102 words long.22

Two months later Mail journalist Craig Hope reported that plans had been drawn up for a new training ground on land by the racecourse, which is owned by the Reuben brothers, and he said that Ryder Architecture were involved. If Hope was correct then it can be assumed that, should the club decide to build a new training ground, Ryder are probably in a better position than most to gain some lucrative work. As local businesses inevitably scrambled for position in anticipation of future investment, have the council done everything they can to ensure fair treatment? On what basis did the council decide to afford Ryder Architecture the opportunity to meet with officials from the Cabinet Office, rather than another company? It is also seems unlikely that a firm of architects would have much objection to the council’s apparent pre-occupation with commercial property. None of this is to suggest any wrongdoing from Ryder Architecture, quite the contrary, they seem to have acted exactly as one would expect a business to, what is shown here is how corrosive the relationships that have grown up in the wake of the takeover, forcing businesses to jockey for favours from unaccountable figures.

We can see that a small number of people from Newcastle based businesses have benefited directly and indirectly from being in the Newcastle United board’s orbit, gaining access to Conservative government figures when they otherwise might not have been able to. But the NUFC board already had some very close ties to the Conservative Party, with director Jamie Reuben being one of the party’s largest donors. On 9th October 2021, The Sunday Times reported that he sits on an “ultra-secret advisory board of Tory super donors given privileged access to the government under Boris Johnson”.

There has been some discussion amongst Newcastle fans of the apparent contradictions between Reuben’s political associations and his much publicised donations to the West End Foodbank. Staveley’s political loyalties have been mentioned far less frequently. In October 2023, it was reported that she had donated more than £84,000 to the Conservatives, and in 2018, it was confirmed that a number of conversations about Theresa May’s leadership campaign had taken place at her home. That someone like this makes dishonest and reactionary arguments around feeding children should come as no surprise.

Labour’s victory in the 2024 General Election means that the relationships with Conservative ministers that have been cultivated by exploiting links to the football club may now be devalued. But if senior Conservatives were drawn towards NUFC because of the club’s ownership, it seems very possible that the same will be true of Labour politicians as well. Starmer’s government have already indicated that securing trade deals with the Gulf countries will be regarded a priority.

Staveley does not appear to think much of elected Labour politicians. In May 2023, Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah told me that she had been seeking a meeting with Staveley for more than a year, but to no avail.(45)

What did then council leader Nick Kemp think of Staveley’s assertation that he would “no doubt use any opportunity to extract political capital” when she lobbied for the Tyne Bridge funding? Not only was he the council’s leader, but his PA firm’s website boasts of its ability to ‘influence public policy’. It’s easy to imagine that Staveley and Percy’s attempts to exert their own influence over such a high profile local political issue might have irritated him. Or perhaps his main concern was ensuring that the money was released.

In addition to the changes in the council’s leadership, there has also been news on one impending departure and one new addition to NUFC’s boardroom.
On 27th September 2024, it was announced that Darren Eales would step down from his role as Chief Executive due to ill health. He will remain in post until his replacement is found.

And on 7th October 2024, the club announced a new appointment to the board of directors. Roger Thornton is Head of Property at Motcomb Estates Limited, one of the Reuben brother’s companies. Unlike anyone else on the board, Thornton has strong ties to the local area. He was born in South Shields, just a few miles from Newcastle, and his father was an administrator for NUFC in the 80s.

He also has some existing links to Newcastle City Council. The publicity released to accompany the commencement of work on the Reuben brother’s development of Pilgrim Street in June 2022 included a photograph of Thornton posing with Michelle Percy, as well as Alex Hay, the councillor who resigned from cabinet in support of Percy following her bullying accusation against Nick Kemp. If Thornton has already established contacts within the council through his work on the Reuben brother’s property developments, it seems very possible that the council will be further disinclined to criticise the NUFC ownership.

But surely the new leader Karen Kilgour must re-evaluate the relationship the council has with the NUFC board, while it is overseen by the most disreputable owners in world sport?

When Lina al-Hathloul visited Newcastle in September 2023, she said that fans “shouldn’t accept being muzzled in exchange for Saudi money”. Newcastle City Council haven’t just been muzzled, they have been actively complicit. Rather than holding discussions with club officials on how to ‘set the tone’ on human rights issues, the council would better serve their constituents by engaging with human rights groups that have too often been ignored by the city’s councillors and MPs since the takeover.

This would be a far better approach to take than inviting NUFC representatives to bimonthly meetings for a “high level overview of the city and region” so they can “influence the work” the council are doing.

Nor should these representatives be given sight of freedom of information requests before the council responds to requests from its constituents.
This servile behaviour does not yet appear to have secured the significant investment into the city that was promised by NUFC board members prior to the takeover. It is also an enormous embarrassment for the city to appear so utterly beholden to one of the most revolting regimes on the planet.
A small number of Newcastle City councillors have spoken to Saudi human rights advocates and supported calls for the Council to proactively support the victims of the Saudi regime which owns Newcastle United. It is time for the Council leadership and Tyneside MPs to follow their example.

For a detailed look at Amanda Staveley and her role at Newcastle United, click here to download issue 4 of our fanzine
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