The betrayal of Manchester United occurred decades ago yet the prospect of Britain’s most famous club becoming a front for sportswashing is a particularly depressing thought.
Online perception of a potential takeover by a Gulf state is misleading. Many of those on Twitter who welcome interest from Qatar or Saudi Arabia are primarily invested in transfers and titles. Their aspiration is for United to emulate Paris Saint-Germain, a Qatari commodity with an attack dreamt up on a Fifa video game.
Should the Glazers’ occupation be ended by Qatari or Saudi investors, it is hard to imagine scores of supporters gathering on Sir Matt Busby Way with tea towels tied around their heads, crassly trying to impersonate Arab dress (and the act of impersonating is racially offensive, of course). United’s matchgoers have long been one of the most principled and they value morals.
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When Joel Glazer tried to pull up the drawbridge with the Super League venture, United fans stormed the castle and their home fixture with Liverpool was postponed. There were impassioned protests against Rupert Murdoch’s failed takeover in 1998 and Joel, Avram and Bryan Glazer required a police escort to escape Old Trafford in 2005.
Manchester City and Newcastle were success-starved clubs at the time of their state takeovers. The City ticker banner on the Stretford End came down within three years of City’s rebirth under Abu Dhabi rule and Newcastle occupy a Champions League qualifying place 16 months into their Saudi era.
It is dangerous to normalise state ownership of football clubs. Amanda Staveley, the driving force behind Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund's acquisition of Newcastle, last year said she was "really sad" Roman Abramovich would have to relinquish control of Chelsea while Ukrainians were fleeing or dying amid Russian shelling.
The Newcastle manager Eddie Howe treated a question on the execution of 81 people in one day in Saudi Arabia as an inconvenience. Never mind that the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was butchered in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul or that Salma al-Shehab, a 34-year-old PhD student, returned home to be arrested and sentenced to 34 years for retweeting a critical tweet about Mohammed bin Salman’s regime, the Toon are in a final and Anthony Gordon arrived.
The sportswashing of Newcastle extends to their away kit, which came out of the laundry in the colours of the Saudi Arabia national team. That is a tackier trick than Mike Ashley’s company logo being plastered all over St James’ Park.
You only had to witness the delight in the away end at Selhurst Park on the final day of last season to understand how relatively sanguine United fans are with City’s success. Post-2008, it has always been hollow to them and City’s spending has prompted separate investigations by Uefa and the Premier League. City eventually prevailed over Uefa but some opposition fans have made their minds up, whatever the final outcome with the Premier League.
The Glazers are hardly synonymous with principles - Edward held a fundraiser for Donald Trump while he was in the White House - but they must consider fan sentiment. Joel Glazer has conversed with a handful of supporters on the fans’ advisory board and it is hard to imagine any of them favouring state ownership.
United have held the moral high ground over City since September 2008 and would surrender that under state ownership. A narrative some of City and Newcastle’s fans have settled on is it is xenophobic to decry state ownership. It is not insular of a United fan to endorse Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Failsworth-born and experienced with bankrolling sporting ventures in football, cycling, sailing and running. There is not exactly a palpable preference for American ownership, either. Football can make the most affluent figures look like amateurs and Todd Boehly is the latest.
United are straying close to six years without silverware but they are the only club in Europe competing in four competitions and appointing Erik ten Hag was the best footballing decision the club has made since Sir Alex Ferguson spoke to “the little boy inside” Robin van Persie in 2012. United need owners who will sufficiently back Ten Hag and treat the club as a community asset. There has to be a promise to modernise Old Trafford and the Carrington training complex.
The blue side of Manchester has already been accused of being a front for sportswashing by human rights charities and the city has a moral obligation to rail against similar ownership at United. It is the city that gave birth to the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and a statue of Abraham Lincoln is located near Albert Square to honour the Victorian mill workers' solidarity against the slave trade.
Four years ago, United hosted the Stonewall football team on an end-of-season pitch day and staff posed with the Stonewall players for a group photo. How welcome would Stonewall’s players and members of the Rainbow Devils group feel if an invite was extended under Qatari ownership when homosexuality is still illegal in the country?
The recent World Cup in Qatar has validated the nation in the eyes of impressionable football followers. An ambassador for the Qatar World Cup was emboldened to describe homosexuality as "a damage in the mind".
Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s disgraceful defence of Qatar is to be expected from a man who watched the opening match of the 2018 World Cup with Bin Salman and Vladimir Putin either side of him. This cannot be the new normal in English football.
PSG's Qatari chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi is close with the Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin and is certain to have knowledge of a proposal to buy United. Ceferin owes United fans over the Super League’s collapse and he should make it as prohibitive as possible for multi-ownership.
But betrayal is rife in football.
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