Newcastle United can’t win when it comes to loaning players from Saudi Pro League clubs | OneFootball

The international break has ended up dominated by the debate on loan players arriving at Premier League clubs from other clubs where a PL owner also has a stake / interest, or as the debate is more commonly referred to, how Newcastle United and Saudi Arabia are trying to cheat.

I suppose at least one thing we can be grateful for, it gave everybody something to talk about during a quite horrendously mind-numbing international break.

It is bad enough watching England at any time in the qualifying stages for tournaments BUT when they are already qualified and then struggle to beat some woeful teams (England only had five efforts on target in total in over three hours of ‘action’ against Malta and North Macedonia, in getting a lucky 2-0 win and 1-1 draw, two of the three goals they ‘scored’ were own goals!), it is another level.

Anyway, as no doubt you will have heard by now, a desperate move led by Tottenham and Liverpool, failed to get the number of votes needed to ban Newcastle United / Saudi Arabia, sorry… Premier League clubs, from bringing in loan players from clubs that have the same owner(s).

This emergency ban aimed for the January 2024 transfer window, needed at least 14 of the 20 clubs to vote in favour, as is the case with all votes on major proposed Premier League changes. Liverpool and Tottenham needed another 12 PL clubs to back them, in the end only 10 did.

So basically, 40%, 8 of the 20 Premier League clubs, didn’t support this loans ban.

For starters, this loans ban was ridiculous in that it would have still allowed loan deals between clubs that have the same owner(s). Where is there any integrity at all in such a proposal that would still have allowed loans going from the PL clubs to other clubs owned by the same owner(s) but not the other way around?

I think you have to call into question the integrity of all those involved in forcing this vote to happen, the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham and those tasked with running the Premier League on a day to day basis. I think that even if it had got the necessary 14 votes, there would have been every chance of it getting successfully challenged in the courts, whereas if the proposal had been a two-way one, with all loans in and out of PL clubs with regard to clubs with the same owner(s), it would have been far harder (impossible?) to challenge in the courts.

Anyway, Newcastle United, sorry… the 8 Premier League clubs who voted against the loans ban, won the day.

However… you wouldn’t think it in the aftermath.

The amount of nonsense headlines about Newcastle United / Saudi Arabia, simply embarrassing.

I repeat, 40% of Premier League clubs, 8 of the 20, voted to stop this.

Newcastle United / Saudi Arabia didn’t play their joker, they didn’t have a super vote that overruled all the rest.

Though you would struggle to believe this was the case when reading the shameful daft headlines and stories…

What about this from I-News, can you believe it???

The Manchester Evening News make it seem like it was Newcastle United alone that decided this, how it ‘affects’ Man U and Man City. They both had a vote as well AND if Man City and only one other club had voted for the ban then they wouldn’t have been ‘affected’ by this decision…

You have this nonsense from The Telegraph…

How about this from BBC Sport, part of what we all pay our license fee for!

The likes of TNT Sports very much in the tiny minority who showed any integrity or even handedness in how they covered this Premier League vote:

The truth is that Newcastle United (Saudi Arabia!) cannot win with loans from Saudi Pro League clubs.

If Newcastle United did end up loaning a player in January from one of the four Saudi Arabia clubs that also have a (75%) PIF stake in them, then all the unscrupulous media would say that this is proof that it was the plan all along.

They will say the same even if Newcastle loaned any player(s) from a club in Saudi Arabia that the PIF has no stake in.

(Indeed, I reckon for sure that even if any player ever leaves the Saudi Pro League, such as say Neves or ASM and is bought by another club (even a Premier League one) and then sometime years later ended up at St James’ Park, the media would still be claiming this as ‘proof’ that some kind of massive Newcastle United / Saudi Arabia conspiracy was in place.)

If Newcastle United don’t loan any players from a club in Saudi Arabia in January 2024 then it will still make absolutely no difference. As for sure the media would then simply twist the story to be that NUFC would 100% for sure have done some loans from clubs in Saudi Arabia but didn’t do so because they were afraid of all the bad publicity, or fear of future legal challenges, or other such nonsense.

The big problem of course is that all the unscrupulous journalists, pundits, rival fans and so on, have already found Newcastle United guilty in their Kangaroo Court.

They publish and say all these daft things, basically stating it as fact that Newcastle United intend to loan players from one or more of these four clubs in Saudi Arabia in January 2024.

They do this without a single scrap of evidence.

Just ask them.

Ask them to name, point to, one single piece of evidence that backs up the claims that Newcastle United intend to do these loans from Saudi Arabia.

The reality is that the only ‘evidence’ they could give you is other ridiculous / unscrupulous stories that also have zero foundation in truth / fact.

The claims from journalists started back in the summer before the season even started, they didn’t start when during the season Sandro Tonali got banned for the rest of the 2023/24 campaign.

This was mainly sparked by Ruben Neves going to one of the clubs in Saudi Arabia and the fact he was only 26 and in his prime, unlike most others in their 30s. Certain journalists claiming the £47m Al Hilal paid for Neves was simply a cover screen for Newcastle United, they actually named Bruno Guimaraes, saying if he got a bad injury for example, then Saudi Arabia / Newcastle United would simply organise a Neves loan to get around FFP restrictions. The number of people and clubs needing to be in on this massive conspiracy just to potentially get a loan player to NUFC, was simply ludicrous to claim.

However, whatever happens in reality now, the truth is that it is simply seen as fact now, that Newcastle United / Saudi Arabia hatched a plan for January 2024 dodgy loan deals AND even if they don’t end up happening, that changes nothing.

The problem these days is that so many people and organisations lack any integrity, especially in the media, that we come to expect nothing better.

There is the odd exception, such as the excellent David Ornstein at The Athletic, who has proved time after time he has great sources, breaking story after story on Newcastle United and other clubs, that turn out to be on the money. This week he revealed that there has been absolutely no contact from Newcastle with Al Hilal or Ruben Neves, never mind negotiations. That the player is happy in Saudi Arabia and nothing has happened, no approach at all from Newcastle United.

As always though for the overwhelming majority of the media, don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Newcastle United and Saudi Arabia are guilty, even if no loans ever happen from one of these four Saudi clubs to NUFC in January 2024.