How Johnson's government pressured the Premier League into the Saudi takeover
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Celebrations at Newcastle United as they qualify for the Champions League.
It's a success story for the club, team and fans - but it's all been helped by new money from their Saudi backers.
Today we look at a future of football as nation states - securing victories on the pitch, battling geopolitics off it. And we look at the investigation by The Athletic journalist Adam Crafton, who reveals the pressure Boris Johnson's government brought to bear on the Premier League during the Saudi takeover of Newcastle, the failure of which he said would be "an immediate risk" to the UK/Saudi relationship.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.9 | Back in the big time. |
| 0:15.7 | The Champions League will return to St James is part. |
| 0:19.9 | Yeah, well done. |
| 0:23.2 | Newcastle United in the Champions League at the elite of European football at the top table. |
| 0:28.3 | Just two years after the club was taken over by Saudi Arabia. |
| 0:34.3 | I say that advisedly. |
| 0:35.8 | It was the Saudi sovereign wealth fund that bought the club, |
| 0:39.1 | and it has transformed Newcastle United Football Club. But this is not an episode about football. |
| 0:47.5 | It's about money. It's about influence. And it's about whether our government under Boris Johnson |
| 0:53.3 | was straight with the public in his dealings with Saudi Arabia and why he was so keen for the deal to go through. |
| 1:04.0 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:10.0 | It's John. It's Emily. And when Newcastle, The News Agents. |
| 1:11.4 | It's John. |
| 1:12.3 | It's Emily. |
| 1:13.4 | And when Newcastle United was bought by Saudi Arabia, there was something rather spectacular. |
| 1:18.7 | Watching the scenes of fans descending on St James's Park on a Saturday afternoon in August, September, |
| 1:24.8 | wearing their black and white striped shirts and wearing kaffir scarves |
| 1:28.5 | wrapped around their heads to celebrate the fact that the Saudis had taken over the club. |
| 1:33.8 | It was a new dawn for Newcastle United. |
| 1:37.1 | But now as they celebrate getting into the Champions League, the questions have started to emerge |
... |
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