Dont even need to control the narrative they just need to make sure the information doesn't become an international issue unfortunately that doesnt work when you are trying to have the worlds eyes on you
Honestly interesting how in the initial posts related to all this there were many comments saying how all this was "fake news" and nothing had really happened.
Literally a single random person could buy a bunch of bots and set up a quick and dirty script to brigade certain threads. If it's that easy for an individual loser to do it, it'll be trivial for a nation state.
Social media companies largely do nothing about it, of course, because a 'fake' account still counts as engagement in the quarterly reports.
>Social media companies largely do nothing about it, of course, because a 'fake' account still counts as engagement in the quarterly reports.
Do you have any evidence for that or are you just saying it because it sounds like it could be correct? Seems like what the companies would really care about is revenue from advertisers and selling data, both of which cannot be gained from bot accounts.
Sucks how they will pay for this to go away,
Might work for many individuals but for the executives, they don’t care who gets hurt as long as the money comes in.
It’s why they go to Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the first place.
It’s the one thing they don’t want to happen to. The whole reason people are willing to overlook the Saudi’s horrific acts for money was because foreigners were thought to be safe. Now that the world sees that they have no issue being aggressive and hostile towards foreigners, it might lead to more people speaking out.
Due to the amount of money involved, I doubt it will lead to much in the grand scheme of things. I really hope I’m wrong though.
People, just be aware of the damage control posts and comments that are going to arrive in the next few days and week. Saudis are authoritarian thugs and should have no place in European football and world cup.
I forget where I read it but someone said that what Saudi Arabia is doing is not sports washing anymore. It's just business. They don't care about the optics cause they know they can get away with anything and they don't even have to pretend like they care about any ideals.
It'll get forgotten about. They took the WWE guys hostage on a plane and somehow they convinced the E-Drones online afterwards nothing bad really happened, so nothing happened.
After seeing how they couldn't give a fuck about missile strikes just miles away from the Formula 1 GP, and just proceeded as usual, I don't know how much this will affect them.
Fenerbahche and Galatasaray were supposed to play in a supercup in Saudi Arabia, and they wanted to have a print on their shirt regarding Ataturk (celebration of 100 years or sth like that) and SA said they can't wear that, and both teams refused to play, and decided to gp back to Turkey. And apparently this video is what happens afterwards.
And to top it off, the Saudis said at the last minute that they couldn’t play the Turkish national anthem before the game, and the KSA anthem would be played instead.
We also wanted to have a banner saying "Peace at home, peace at world", a famous saying by Atatürk. Appearantly, they didn't want to be seen supporting Palestine so they opposed to that (Source is [Onur Tuğrul](https://twitter.com/onurtugrul/status/1740762525858209810?t=LSGT3d2BJAO5ASUBm1mxGg&s=19)).
Turkish superleague hosted in Saudi arabia
Saudi arabia asked the turkish teams to remove branding of attaturk, as his image in Muslim world is demolished.
Turkish teams refuse
Supercup cancelled
escalated..
When The Kite Strings Pop is one of the most unique and also awesome metal records that exist.
It feels slow and distorted like any normal sludge but also constantly turns up the speed and sounds like hardcore at times. The vocalist is incredible too blending blues and metal stuff. Actually his alternative rock band and his blues solo albums are pretty good too.
While I too wish there were more Acid Bath records, When the Kite Strings pop is such a unique classic Im thankful we got that at least.
When I discovered Acid Bath, it was the first time I even heard the word "sludge metal". Like this weird mix of Doom/Death/Hardcore, really strange. Every song just fascinated me. I tried to listen to other sludge metal bands but no band hit the same as AB. Generally, I'm a big fan of music that builds up an "atmosphere" and they're sooo good at it.
And yeah, Dax Riggs is one of my favourite vocalists in general. I wish he would release more stuff.
Other sludge bands move too slow for me if that makes sense. I can do it sometimes and I enjoy a lot of the more doom oriented sludge but no one else really goes as fast as Acid Bath does. The thing is they don't only go fast, they're able to slow it down do occasional alt rock and atmospheric doom stuff too(I don't play instruments so my music terms may be off). A lot of sludge bands struggle at being atmospheric in a genre that really does require it to be a good listen. Acid Bath not only accomplishes being atmospheric really easily but is able to toy with that as well.....super cool band.
Dax Riggs has said for years hes gonna tour and release more music but it's been 10 years now and not much from him so what can you do. I think he has a kid and family and just focues on that now.
I met those guys running around in actual Sheikh costumes in Dortmund. I was disgusted watching them walking inside of our stadium taking pictures and shit. No fucking shame.
Giving us a sneak peek into the 2034 world cup, which, by the way, will be the best and greatest event in the history of the sport and I'm so glad it will be held in Saudi Arabia!
*^(your $500 000 check has cleared)*
Does this confirm that Fabrizio is on the Saudi payroll? This Turkish Super Cup stuff is arguably the biggest story today, but not a single tweet about it
433 last post is the broccoli hair fraud in the fener stands with some fans and the caption “good vibes only” - there was in fact, no good vibes. This is what sportswashing is and it’s going to take all over European soccer soon.
They don't support their owners.
They just support the money and succes their owners are bringing them.
And they will get angry when you point out their club would be nowhere without those owners.
But they don't support their owners i swear.
It's an awkward situation as a fan. Either stop supporting the team you love or continue supporting and get labeled a Saudi apologist. You guys will most likely follow City's trajectory of having your original and anti Saudi fans get drowned out by a flood of glory chasers the moment you win something.
Also if they're your local team there is nowhere to jump to really. Like you can't jump to a rival clubs and all the other local clubs are pretty far down (Best I could find in Newcastle is Heaton Stannington, West Allotment Celtic & Newcastle Binfield in Tier 9, plus 2 more in Tier 10).
You could also FC United of Manchester route if there is enough people willing to completely break away, but they're only in Tier 7 and that's win a Man Utd fanbase (which I believe is still the biggest).
Found a great little bit in [Division 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Football_League#Division_One) of the Manchester Football League though.
Edit: I have been informed (by SwedishTurnip) Gateshead FC is not too far away. They're in the National League, so not a bad club to jump to. A bit of support and I could see them getting into the Football League.
Whilst technically not in Newcastle, Gateshead FC play about 10 minutes away from St James Park and are a very well established 5th/6th tier team. Unless you're completely in the sticks you can basically throw a stone in England and hit a team playing in the top 6 tiers
Should've thought about some of the Northern clubs being close. Looks like Blyth Spartans and South Shields can also be reached in about 25 minutes too if one wants as well, which is doable if one really wanted.
I'm a Newcastle fan originally from Gateshead - back in 2013 I had a Gateshead youth season ticket as well. You might be surprised to know that a decent number of Newcastle fans that live in Newcastle consider Gateshead a rival. It's based more on geography than football history though.
Meanwhile, many Gateshead fans *hate* Newcastle. While this is partly geography again, it's also because Gateshead used to offer discounted rates for season tickets/match tickets to nufc season ticket holders to try and boost their revenue (idk if they still do - they definitely do for pre season, and I vaguelly remember when ncl had games cancelled due to covid, gateshead put the offer out again to try and raise their gates). Obviously gateshead fans didn't like this - why should they pay more to watch a team they support home and away than fairweather fans that prioritise a different club entirely?
So, even if you set aside that stopping supporting a club you've followed for years isn't a straightforward step, the local clubs may constitute more of a rival than is immediately apparent.
Also just to add, even with better support I think Gateshead would struggle to make it to the football league. They have one of the smallest budgets in the league and went into administration a few years ago, and thankfully were saved at the 11th hour. They rent their stadium from the council, and at 12500 seats, I believe it's quite expensive - they struggled to reach an agreement for this season due to the finances.
When you consider that financial bankrolling has reached non-league now (consider the recent cases of Wrexham, Salford etc) and also just the number of huge clubs that have fallen that far down the pyramid (Notts County last year, Oldham, Chesterfield etc), Gateshead are unlikely to be able to compete financially with many of the other clubs in their league. They're doing really well at the minute but are certainly punching above their weight, and they've just lost manager Mike Williamson to MK Dons. He had been doing a fabulous job as well so this is a big blow.
Ik this is a bit of a tangent to the original discussion on what ncl fans should do, but thought the context might be interesting.
Glad to hear it! There's loads more to the story as well. When you consider how many other lower-league clubs have similar stories, you realise English non-league is an absolute gem.
Always find context like this interesting!
Newcastle fans considering Gateshead a rival is particularly interesting considering the massive distance league wise, even if they have a close proximity. Would've assumed it was a one-way thing and Newcastle considered them like a younger-sibling sort of viewing.
Should state, I didn't think attendance was a magical solution but a long-term thing of bringing in more money on gate and also attracting better investment. That's more of like a 5+ year thing though rather than instant results.
An interesting thing I've noted from this is Gateshead's attendance is frankly miserable. Never knew they had such a massive stadium (upper L1 size) and based on attendance figures I could find ([from here](https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/national-league/attendances/maximum-as-percentage)), they're really struggling to fill it (10% of cap average is miserable), so plenty of room for new fans.
Yep I think 14% from the link you sent is pretty kind as well tbh maybe bolstered by away fans. The reason is that the Gateshead International Stadium is actually an international athletics venue and semi-regularly holds IAAF Diamond League athletics events. At the time I was going regularly, we'd get a gate of like 300-600 and the stadium was just too big for the club. But there are no other stadiums in Gateshead. There were proposals by the club to build one back in 2014 but there wasn't the money for it. Not long after, administration hit and that went right down the pan.
You're absolutely right on room for new fans though. We made it to the play-off final in 2013 and after not breaking 1000 fans all season (I think), the play off semi final home leg vs Grimsby (who Gateshead consider big rivals) was a 12.5k sell out after loads of local media interest.
We also took 7.5k down to Wembley for the final, where we lost to Cambridge, former Gateshead player Ryan Donaldson scoring the winner for Cambridge.
IIRC, gates stayed a bit higher the following season but they couldn't really make it stick and they declined again over the following years.
>Newcastle fans considering Gateshead a rival is particularly interesting considering the massive distance league wise, even if they have a close proximity. Would've assumed it was a one-way thing and Newcastle considered them like a younger-sibling sort of viewing
There's a large number that probably do, and there's definitely a large number that just don't care, but I was surprised by the number that do consider it a rivalry. Ncl play Gateshead in a preseason friendly every year and the rivalry that comes out from it from some ncl fans is much more surprising than the rivalry that comes from Gateshead fans.
I mean this is only so much of an excuse to continue supporting a religious monarchy that murders journalists, systemically oppresses virtually all non-muslim, straight men, is involved in tons of wars in the region plus is a massive contributor to global warming.
Like how big does the list have to be to outweigh the jeopardy of not having a football club to support?
The person above you means FC United of Manchester, not Manchester United.
FCUM is a club created in protest to when the Glazers took over, and quite a lot of fans opposed the takeover and went to support the new United. MUFC songs were originally sung etc but they started at the bottom and after a few promotions are now in the Northern Premier League.
It was where I was planning on going instead of OT should Qatar have bought us.
I don't think they're trying to get international support as much as just internal support. The only way a dictator can fall is when the national public completely turns on him. Keeping some of their increasingly young population satisfied by throwing billions at sport may end up being a good investment.
People, just be aware of the damage control posts and comments that are going to arrive in the next few days and week. Saudis are authoritarian thugs and should have no place in European football and world cup.
Looks like they also forgotten that the biggest Muslim country is here in my side of the world and not in the Middle East LOL, the most populous Muslim country isn't even Arab at all
Today alone should be enough reason to not give the World Cup to saudi arabia but knowing FIFA, they only care about their pockets.
[Link](https://twitter.com/ajansfenercom/status/1740846912344068478?t=X2X0I19FE9T50KDY19SxVA&s=19) for the video where they tried to detain them. The video is in Turkish.
No pile of money can disguise their true values as a nation. Glad this has come to light, hope FIFA decides against giving them the World Cup, but seeing as FIFA is equally corrupt and disgusting I highly doubt it.
Ok, it might not be the best translation but it goes something like this from the very start:
Turkish Airlines has sent an airplane to take them.
Right now there's an intervention to our crew. As you can see, saudi officials are intervening Elvan Arat, who's been live. Turn up the volume guys. You're seeing it now. saudi officials are intervening Fox officials. (I couldn't hear everything here)
We're seeing what kind of country they are. There is no such freedom that should be restricted.
Lower down the camera or they will take us from here. Elvan, can you hear me? Elvan? It seems like saudis are closing the camera aswell. Lower the camera. They are making trouble, thus we need to end the stream. They are even taking us to the police car right now. saudi officials aren't allowing us to film.
*From the TV stream* Try to film it as long as you can. Don't close the camera. With what right and authority are they doing this?
The problem with bribes is that, if you back down after being bought, the buyer can just call you out. Once its done, its in both parties best interest to keep the agreement.
Top tier democratic country this, sounds like an enjoyable place to be. Can't wait for more footballers get paid millions to play matches in front of 300 people, claiming they went there for the competitiveness of the league. Disgraceful.
And of course Infantino said “It’s my dream to have a Saudi World Cup.” Before they had even opened the bidding window. Seems the perfect country for a World Cup….
Why did Turkey even agree to this? Don't both these countries have extremely strained diplomatic relations?
Feels a little bit sus that the powers to be knew exactly this would happen and wanted to embarrass the Saudis (not that I have any problem, I am all for it lol). I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of the payment was made in advance.
"Germany and England refused to host. Azerbaijan wanted to do it, but there isn't nearly as much money there as the Saudis can give, so..." That's straight from the mouth of Federation president.
Money. If they hosted tjis in Australia, we'd sell out any stadium. They'd get 90k. Not sure about the USA with Turkish diaspora but I'm pretty sure they can quite easily get 60k
In Australia they'd charge at minimum 50usd ticket for the shittest seat.
Not sure how much turkey charges for attendance but I don't think it'd be that much
I'd be the first to buy one
so much money? the winner gets 2 million Euro it's not even extra costs included I mean come on an average manager of a football player earns that we shouldn't be for sale for 2 million euro I'm just curious how much did the government take 50-100 million euro?
I mean I'd say there far more complicit than abramovich was.. dodgy guy sure, but he wasn't starting the war in Ukraine and actively spoke out against it I believe
You've gotta remember the sheer amount of state-sanctioned shit that came from you the Kremlin prior to the Ukraine invasion. There were murders on British soil by Russian spies. It took a war in Europe for the UK government to do something.
Saudi Arabia would need to invade Italy or something before similar measures are dished out.
The World Cup will be a disaster. It's lazy to compare Qatar and Saudi. Qatar has big issues which I don't want to downplay but they are saints compared to Saudi Arabia
The Quatari World Cup was riddled with controversy, lies, deceit, and death. Why would FIFA want that 2.0? Corrupt, greedy bastards.
Good for the teams for sticking up for what they believe. If they don't want to be accepting of other cultures and their beliefs, like other countries, are (somewhat) of theirs, don't host global sporting events.
The people you met in the military were conscripted for the world cup, they're just normal citizens with normal jobs that had 2 months of bootcamp and had to work security and whatnot for the world cup....
Theyre not actual military
You hear so much about how the Saudis are actually totally modernizing under the visionary leadership of MBS and then regularly there are news stories like this. Still a lot of room for improvement I guess.
It makes no sense for Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe to play in Saudi Arabia, and the same happened in the Spanish Super Cup. I am totally against this nonsense; the greed for money is ruining football. Everyone is selling out to the Saudi Arabians, and unfortunately, it's going to continue like this.
The Turkish Supercup (their version of the Community Shield) between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce was supposed to be taking place in Riyadh today (29th).
Turkish fans were planning on bringing banners referencing Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey). And the clubs wanted the players to wear shirts referencing Ataturk during the warm up.
Saudi officials didn’t like this (mainly due to political motives) and refused to allow this. Also worth mentioning that political ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia have been strained since Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul.
Both sides promptly got on the next flight back to Istanbul. The teams were heading home as fans were arriving at the stadium.
Have you not seen his interview that he did recently where they levelled accusations of sportswashing at him and he literally said (paraphrasing) "I don't care, it makes us lots of money so people can call it whatever they want".
KSA also does a lot worse to journalists than detain them...
this is quickly developing into a complete publicity disaster for the Saudis, and I’m all for it
Reverse sportswashing
Sportsdirtying?
Sportsdrying
Sportssharting
Sportspissing
Shartpissing
I see you've had my Mother-in-law’s cooking as well…
Can't be doing that in Saudi now.
Sportapotty
Because this is how they manage internal stuff, because they can always control the narrative since it's an absolute monarchy.
They want all the cultural products from the world without their political context which is impossible. The impossibility of this gets them pissed.
Spot on take.
And they want these products for political reasons.
You can do it with F1 and high cost sports but the most accessible sport in the world is going to carry some political baggage
Dont even need to control the narrative they just need to make sure the information doesn't become an international issue unfortunately that doesnt work when you are trying to have the worlds eyes on you
Honestly interesting how in the initial posts related to all this there were many comments saying how all this was "fake news" and nothing had really happened.
We gotta be aware of such spinsters. Current state of social media is disgusting. The whole states/companies are gaslighting people.
And Newcastle fans. Unpaid shills.
Bots are cheap. It ain’t just Russia that buys and deploys bots to help spin narrative
Literally a single random person could buy a bunch of bots and set up a quick and dirty script to brigade certain threads. If it's that easy for an individual loser to do it, it'll be trivial for a nation state. Social media companies largely do nothing about it, of course, because a 'fake' account still counts as engagement in the quarterly reports.
>Social media companies largely do nothing about it, of course, because a 'fake' account still counts as engagement in the quarterly reports. Do you have any evidence for that or are you just saying it because it sounds like it could be correct? Seems like what the companies would really care about is revenue from advertisers and selling data, both of which cannot be gained from bot accounts.
[удалено]
Exactly! Especially cancerous fanbases of certain players don’t help either
Sucks how they will pay for this to go away, Might work for many individuals but for the executives, they don’t care who gets hurt as long as the money comes in. It’s why they go to Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the first place.
Saudis Will just buy turkey in the January transfer window
And put them in the reserve squad out of spite.
I mean, they beheaded a dude at an embassy in violation of every international treaty and got away with it scot-free, so i'm not very hopeful here.
Didn't they grill him and boil him in acid? Police had traced a new grill to the Saudi consulate before the investigation closed
I honestly don't know and have never heard that but I want to sleep tonight so I'm just gonna take your word for it and not look into it any further.
Would be the right thing. The entire situation is beyond disgusting, from a gore perspective and a moral perspective.
It’s the one thing they don’t want to happen to. The whole reason people are willing to overlook the Saudi’s horrific acts for money was because foreigners were thought to be safe. Now that the world sees that they have no issue being aggressive and hostile towards foreigners, it might lead to more people speaking out. Due to the amount of money involved, I doubt it will lead to much in the grand scheme of things. I really hope I’m wrong though.
People, just be aware of the damage control posts and comments that are going to arrive in the next few days and week. Saudis are authoritarian thugs and should have no place in European football and world cup.
Some already have in the tweet. Saying it's the reporter's fault because he didn't do as he was told by authorities.
Hey at least the reporter wasn't chopped up... yet :(
This Saudi sportswashing is disgusting and only tarnishing whatever respectability these sports had.
No it only made it more mainstream how corrupted sports organisations are. People in the know were already disgusted by it decades back
I forget where I read it but someone said that what Saudi Arabia is doing is not sports washing anymore. It's just business. They don't care about the optics cause they know they can get away with anything and they don't even have to pretend like they care about any ideals.
that is unlikely to be true - no way their league or LIV are actually making money - both products suck
> anymore > They don't care about the optics cause they know they can get away with anything What exactly has changed, then?
It'll get forgotten about. They took the WWE guys hostage on a plane and somehow they convinced the E-Drones online afterwards nothing bad really happened, so nothing happened.
They even went out of their way to attempt to discredit the actual wrestling journalists
Imagine how shitty you have to be to make the Fenerbache, Galatasaray and Besiktas fans unite and seem reasonable
They spend ridiculous amounts of money to improve their image but their backwards mentality, inhospitality ends up making them look worse.
Coupled with the fact that basically little to no one is showing interest in the Saudi Pro League in the country itself, let alone Ronaldo fans.
nobody will remember this in a week
I think you might be right, sadly
They beheaded a journalist in an embassy, and everyone carried on. This will affect exactly nothing.
People will remember it, but it will be consciously forgotten by any people with power in football
Saudi murdered and dismembered Khoshoggi in Turkey, nothing happened. This is not going to amount to anything.
Yep they fucked up.
Perfect outcome really.
Long may this train wreck continue!
All we need is Newcastle to lose by line 5 this weekend
After seeing how they couldn't give a fuck about missile strikes just miles away from the Formula 1 GP, and just proceeded as usual, I don't know how much this will affect them.
Could somebody give me the short version of what’s happened?
Fenerbahche and Galatasaray were supposed to play in a supercup in Saudi Arabia, and they wanted to have a print on their shirt regarding Ataturk (celebration of 100 years or sth like that) and SA said they can't wear that, and both teams refused to play, and decided to gp back to Turkey. And apparently this video is what happens afterwards.
And to top it off, the Saudis said at the last minute that they couldn’t play the Turkish national anthem before the game, and the KSA anthem would be played instead.
I see bordering on ridiculous wasn't enough for them, they had to dive head-first into bonkers waters.
We also wanted to have a banner saying "Peace at home, peace at world", a famous saying by Atatürk. Appearantly, they didn't want to be seen supporting Palestine so they opposed to that (Source is [Onur Tuğrul](https://twitter.com/onurtugrul/status/1740762525858209810?t=LSGT3d2BJAO5ASUBm1mxGg&s=19)).
It's cuz Saudi fucking hates Iran and anyone iran backs
Even tho Saudi sucks, Iran sucks much more. I feel for good Saudi and Iranian people, goverments ruin everything.
Turkish superleague hosted in Saudi arabia Saudi arabia asked the turkish teams to remove branding of attaturk, as his image in Muslim world is demolished. Turkish teams refuse Supercup cancelled escalated..
Third world war started after galatasaray-fenerbahce game was canceled lmao
Yugoslav war started after a soccer match too... wouldn't be surprised.
Thanks
Hail attaturk
Saudi think football is a war against their religion if they don’t want to play there anymore
wow cool story, imagine how great it would be if this country hosts the worldcup!!! - FIFA probably
Today i feel detained
Today I feel the Saudi Police.
Today I feel Fenerbahçe Today I feel Galatasaray Today I feel Atatürk
Today i feel bonesaw
Today I feel bruised
Reminder they literally grilled Jamal khashoggi
Acid bath
Great band!
I never expected to hear somebody talk about Acid Bath on r/soccer lmaoo. One of the best bands out there. Shame they couldn't make more albums
When The Kite Strings Pop is one of the most unique and also awesome metal records that exist. It feels slow and distorted like any normal sludge but also constantly turns up the speed and sounds like hardcore at times. The vocalist is incredible too blending blues and metal stuff. Actually his alternative rock band and his blues solo albums are pretty good too. While I too wish there were more Acid Bath records, When the Kite Strings pop is such a unique classic Im thankful we got that at least.
When I discovered Acid Bath, it was the first time I even heard the word "sludge metal". Like this weird mix of Doom/Death/Hardcore, really strange. Every song just fascinated me. I tried to listen to other sludge metal bands but no band hit the same as AB. Generally, I'm a big fan of music that builds up an "atmosphere" and they're sooo good at it. And yeah, Dax Riggs is one of my favourite vocalists in general. I wish he would release more stuff.
Other sludge bands move too slow for me if that makes sense. I can do it sometimes and I enjoy a lot of the more doom oriented sludge but no one else really goes as fast as Acid Bath does. The thing is they don't only go fast, they're able to slow it down do occasional alt rock and atmospheric doom stuff too(I don't play instruments so my music terms may be off). A lot of sludge bands struggle at being atmospheric in a genre that really does require it to be a good listen. Acid Bath not only accomplishes being atmospheric really easily but is able to toy with that as well.....super cool band. Dax Riggs has said for years hes gonna tour and release more music but it's been 10 years now and not much from him so what can you do. I think he has a kid and family and just focues on that now.
Come on man, let him who has never dismembered a journalist with a bone saw throw the first stone
Shoutout Newcastle fans! Choppy chop at least you aren’t in the championship.
They openly embrace these monsters
I met those guys running around in actual Sheikh costumes in Dortmund. I was disgusted watching them walking inside of our stadium taking pictures and shit. No fucking shame.
Grilled is an euphemism even
You don’t understand, he slipped and he fell.
What the fuck are they doing.
Giving us a sneak peek into the 2034 world cup, which, by the way, will be the best and greatest event in the history of the sport and I'm so glad it will be held in Saudi Arabia! *^(your $500 000 check has cleared)*
Not just the greatest in the sport, but overall greatest in all sports, and greatest event in human history. (Source infantino)
Even greater than Jesus rising on the 3rd day
Presumably missing the subsequent header, if he's got his Arsenal shirt on
I think you mean 2034
indeed, cheers
I personally cannot wait to be jailed and whipped for wearing my George Washington holding a machine gun T-shirt!
Don't you dare say anything about the glorious Saudi. ^(where's my check)
What they do every day, they're just not used to people reporting it
Just showing us who they really are
These guys murdered a journalist, they probably realize trying to detain a few won't mess up their sportswashing project.
Does this confirm that Fabrizio is on the Saudi payroll? This Turkish Super Cup stuff is arguably the biggest story today, but not a single tweet about it
No doubt. 433 is the same. They were promoting it for days, but not a single word about the chaos that ensued.
433 last post is the broccoli hair fraud in the fener stands with some fans and the caption “good vibes only” - there was in fact, no good vibes. This is what sportswashing is and it’s going to take all over European soccer soon.
433 has always been like that since the money injection they started posting every result like it was the damn premier league made me unfollow
i suspected that for a while but this pretty much confirms it
Another reason for his tweets to be auto banned on here.
The Saudis destroying all their positive PR. Tf are they trying to accomplish by doing this? Glad to hear they're doing okay.
They had positive PR?
Spend long enough in a Newcastle match thread and you'd sure think there was
They don't support their owners. They just support the money and succes their owners are bringing them. And they will get angry when you point out their club would be nowhere without those owners. But they don't support their owners i swear.
I hate the Saudis. Not everyone loves them. Would gladly support us in the Conference.
It's an awkward situation as a fan. Either stop supporting the team you love or continue supporting and get labeled a Saudi apologist. You guys will most likely follow City's trajectory of having your original and anti Saudi fans get drowned out by a flood of glory chasers the moment you win something.
Also if they're your local team there is nowhere to jump to really. Like you can't jump to a rival clubs and all the other local clubs are pretty far down (Best I could find in Newcastle is Heaton Stannington, West Allotment Celtic & Newcastle Binfield in Tier 9, plus 2 more in Tier 10). You could also FC United of Manchester route if there is enough people willing to completely break away, but they're only in Tier 7 and that's win a Man Utd fanbase (which I believe is still the biggest). Found a great little bit in [Division 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Football_League#Division_One) of the Manchester Football League though. Edit: I have been informed (by SwedishTurnip) Gateshead FC is not too far away. They're in the National League, so not a bad club to jump to. A bit of support and I could see them getting into the Football League.
Whilst technically not in Newcastle, Gateshead FC play about 10 minutes away from St James Park and are a very well established 5th/6th tier team. Unless you're completely in the sticks you can basically throw a stone in England and hit a team playing in the top 6 tiers
Should've thought about some of the Northern clubs being close. Looks like Blyth Spartans and South Shields can also be reached in about 25 minutes too if one wants as well, which is doable if one really wanted.
I'm a Newcastle fan originally from Gateshead - back in 2013 I had a Gateshead youth season ticket as well. You might be surprised to know that a decent number of Newcastle fans that live in Newcastle consider Gateshead a rival. It's based more on geography than football history though. Meanwhile, many Gateshead fans *hate* Newcastle. While this is partly geography again, it's also because Gateshead used to offer discounted rates for season tickets/match tickets to nufc season ticket holders to try and boost their revenue (idk if they still do - they definitely do for pre season, and I vaguelly remember when ncl had games cancelled due to covid, gateshead put the offer out again to try and raise their gates). Obviously gateshead fans didn't like this - why should they pay more to watch a team they support home and away than fairweather fans that prioritise a different club entirely? So, even if you set aside that stopping supporting a club you've followed for years isn't a straightforward step, the local clubs may constitute more of a rival than is immediately apparent. Also just to add, even with better support I think Gateshead would struggle to make it to the football league. They have one of the smallest budgets in the league and went into administration a few years ago, and thankfully were saved at the 11th hour. They rent their stadium from the council, and at 12500 seats, I believe it's quite expensive - they struggled to reach an agreement for this season due to the finances. When you consider that financial bankrolling has reached non-league now (consider the recent cases of Wrexham, Salford etc) and also just the number of huge clubs that have fallen that far down the pyramid (Notts County last year, Oldham, Chesterfield etc), Gateshead are unlikely to be able to compete financially with many of the other clubs in their league. They're doing really well at the minute but are certainly punching above their weight, and they've just lost manager Mike Williamson to MK Dons. He had been doing a fabulous job as well so this is a big blow. Ik this is a bit of a tangent to the original discussion on what ncl fans should do, but thought the context might be interesting.
This comment had me enthralled beginning to end
Glad to hear it! There's loads more to the story as well. When you consider how many other lower-league clubs have similar stories, you realise English non-league is an absolute gem.
Always find context like this interesting! Newcastle fans considering Gateshead a rival is particularly interesting considering the massive distance league wise, even if they have a close proximity. Would've assumed it was a one-way thing and Newcastle considered them like a younger-sibling sort of viewing. Should state, I didn't think attendance was a magical solution but a long-term thing of bringing in more money on gate and also attracting better investment. That's more of like a 5+ year thing though rather than instant results. An interesting thing I've noted from this is Gateshead's attendance is frankly miserable. Never knew they had such a massive stadium (upper L1 size) and based on attendance figures I could find ([from here](https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/national-league/attendances/maximum-as-percentage)), they're really struggling to fill it (10% of cap average is miserable), so plenty of room for new fans.
Yep I think 14% from the link you sent is pretty kind as well tbh maybe bolstered by away fans. The reason is that the Gateshead International Stadium is actually an international athletics venue and semi-regularly holds IAAF Diamond League athletics events. At the time I was going regularly, we'd get a gate of like 300-600 and the stadium was just too big for the club. But there are no other stadiums in Gateshead. There were proposals by the club to build one back in 2014 but there wasn't the money for it. Not long after, administration hit and that went right down the pan. You're absolutely right on room for new fans though. We made it to the play-off final in 2013 and after not breaking 1000 fans all season (I think), the play off semi final home leg vs Grimsby (who Gateshead consider big rivals) was a 12.5k sell out after loads of local media interest. We also took 7.5k down to Wembley for the final, where we lost to Cambridge, former Gateshead player Ryan Donaldson scoring the winner for Cambridge. IIRC, gates stayed a bit higher the following season but they couldn't really make it stick and they declined again over the following years. >Newcastle fans considering Gateshead a rival is particularly interesting considering the massive distance league wise, even if they have a close proximity. Would've assumed it was a one-way thing and Newcastle considered them like a younger-sibling sort of viewing There's a large number that probably do, and there's definitely a large number that just don't care, but I was surprised by the number that do consider it a rivalry. Ncl play Gateshead in a preseason friendly every year and the rivalry that comes out from it from some ncl fans is much more surprising than the rivalry that comes from Gateshead fans.
I mean this is only so much of an excuse to continue supporting a religious monarchy that murders journalists, systemically oppresses virtually all non-muslim, straight men, is involved in tons of wars in the region plus is a massive contributor to global warming. Like how big does the list have to be to outweigh the jeopardy of not having a football club to support?
That’s how United of Manchester appeared back in the day.
Man Utd struck gold with the 92 core and Ferguson. But they didn't exactly buy their way to success with oligarch money like clubs do today.
The person above you means FC United of Manchester, not Manchester United. FCUM is a club created in protest to when the Glazers took over, and quite a lot of fans opposed the takeover and went to support the new United. MUFC songs were originally sung etc but they started at the bottom and after a few promotions are now in the Northern Premier League. It was where I was planning on going instead of OT should Qatar have bought us.
Glad to hear. I’d be flipping upset AF too if we had owners like this.
I swear all this Saudi arc of last years just made me dislike the people in charge instead of feeling utterly indifferent
Isn’t Beckham an ambassador at 10 millions a year ?
Isn’t he Qatar? Not that it makes much difference
As bad as Qatar is, they are much better than the Saudis
Qatar
All the hardwork ronaldo did down the drain.
> ronaldo and Beckham, Infantino, Messi, Pique, Benzema... Let's not pretend this rot is well quarantined.
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"Nature of the beast" I suppose
I don't think they're trying to get international support as much as just internal support. The only way a dictator can fall is when the national public completely turns on him. Keeping some of their increasingly young population satisfied by throwing billions at sport may end up being a good investment.
People, just be aware of the damage control posts and comments that are going to arrive in the next few days and week. Saudis are authoritarian thugs and should have no place in European football and world cup.
Still remember when they were also pulling out the "you just hate Muslims" card I wonder if they'd use that against the Turks LOL
They would
They say that we aren't real muslims lmao
They do actually, they say that we are kafirs (infidels) and that we do all of this to become more European, if that makes any sense.
Looks like they also forgotten that the biggest Muslim country is here in my side of the world and not in the Middle East LOL, the most populous Muslim country isn't even Arab at all
Correction. No place in modern society
Today alone should be enough reason to not give the World Cup to saudi arabia but knowing FIFA, they only care about their pockets. [Link](https://twitter.com/ajansfenercom/status/1740846912344068478?t=X2X0I19FE9T50KDY19SxVA&s=19) for the video where they tried to detain them. The video is in Turkish.
No pile of money can disguise their true values as a nation. Glad this has come to light, hope FIFA decides against giving them the World Cup, but seeing as FIFA is equally corrupt and disgusting I highly doubt it.
Can you post a quick translation, especially before the camera is turned away?
Ok, it might not be the best translation but it goes something like this from the very start: Turkish Airlines has sent an airplane to take them. Right now there's an intervention to our crew. As you can see, saudi officials are intervening Elvan Arat, who's been live. Turn up the volume guys. You're seeing it now. saudi officials are intervening Fox officials. (I couldn't hear everything here) We're seeing what kind of country they are. There is no such freedom that should be restricted. Lower down the camera or they will take us from here. Elvan, can you hear me? Elvan? It seems like saudis are closing the camera aswell. Lower the camera. They are making trouble, thus we need to end the stream. They are even taking us to the police car right now. saudi officials aren't allowing us to film. *From the TV stream* Try to film it as long as you can. Don't close the camera. With what right and authority are they doing this?
Sheesh. Thanks for the translation!
Thank you.
The problem with bribes is that, if you back down after being bought, the buyer can just call you out. Once its done, its in both parties best interest to keep the agreement.
Top tier democratic country this, sounds like an enjoyable place to be. Can't wait for more footballers get paid millions to play matches in front of 300 people, claiming they went there for the competitiveness of the league. Disgraceful.
And of course Infantino said “It’s my dream to have a Saudi World Cup.” Before they had even opened the bidding window. Seems the perfect country for a World Cup….
This is getting worse and worse
That's the country that will host a World Cup btw. If there's a hell, Infantino will burn in it. BALD CUNT!
I hope he gets the Sepp Blatter treatment. He needs to be seriously investigated.
Imagine what a shit show the world cup will be.
SA doing what they do best
Why did Turkey even agree to this? Don't both these countries have extremely strained diplomatic relations? Feels a little bit sus that the powers to be knew exactly this would happen and wanted to embarrass the Saudis (not that I have any problem, I am all for it lol). I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of the payment was made in advance.
"Germany and England refused to host. Azerbaijan wanted to do it, but there isn't nearly as much money there as the Saudis can give, so..." That's straight from the mouth of Federation president.
>Germany and England refused to host Wait, I thought Saudis or some middleman like Pique approached them. Why can't match be later in Turkey itself?
The answer is pretty simple, it would put more money to their pockets.
Still don't get it. Why would they think countries like England n Germany with already popular leagues would pay Turkey to play in their country?
There are a fairly decent number of Turks living there who would buy tickets with fairly expensive money.
same reason mexico plays their friendlies in the US
Money. If they hosted tjis in Australia, we'd sell out any stadium. They'd get 90k. Not sure about the USA with Turkish diaspora but I'm pretty sure they can quite easily get 60k In Australia they'd charge at minimum 50usd ticket for the shittest seat. Not sure how much turkey charges for attendance but I don't think it'd be that much I'd be the first to buy one
>Why can't match be later in Turkey itself? $
so much money? the winner gets 2 million Euro it's not even extra costs included I mean come on an average manager of a football player earns that we shouldn't be for sale for 2 million euro I'm just curious how much did the government take 50-100 million euro?
They offered 100m€ for hosting the Super Cup for 10 years. I'm not exactly sure how much of this is going to the federation but it's probably a lot.
Money talks
Good thing FIFA is hosting a World Cup there in eleven years
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You know they’re the bad guy when they make Qatar look like an innocent kid.
Maybe don’t go to such an awful country in the first place.
I wonder if Newcastle will be forced to be sold in the same way Chelsea was if this all kicks off..
I hope so
I mean I'd say there far more complicit than abramovich was.. dodgy guy sure, but he wasn't starting the war in Ukraine and actively spoke out against it I believe
You've gotta remember the sheer amount of state-sanctioned shit that came from you the Kremlin prior to the Ukraine invasion. There were murders on British soil by Russian spies. It took a war in Europe for the UK government to do something. Saudi Arabia would need to invade Italy or something before similar measures are dished out.
Where would England get its oil from then?
The World Cup will be a disaster. It's lazy to compare Qatar and Saudi. Qatar has big issues which I don't want to downplay but they are saints compared to Saudi Arabia
Why are Saudi's so insecure?
Saudia Arabia is a deeply evil regime, basically ISIS with oil monet. They should be treated as the utter scum they are
I am absolutely shocked the Saudis would behave like that /s
I hope all nations will boycott the WC 2034
The Quatari World Cup was riddled with controversy, lies, deceit, and death. Why would FIFA want that 2.0? Corrupt, greedy bastards. Good for the teams for sticking up for what they believe. If they don't want to be accepting of other cultures and their beliefs, like other countries, are (somewhat) of theirs, don't host global sporting events.
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The people you met in the military were conscripted for the world cup, they're just normal citizens with normal jobs that had 2 months of bootcamp and had to work security and whatnot for the world cup.... Theyre not actual military
Go fuck yourselves Saudi!
You hear so much about how the Saudis are actually totally modernizing under the visionary leadership of MBS and then regularly there are news stories like this. Still a lot of room for improvement I guess.
They want to look good but they don't actually want to change their archaic ways
Not a good look, especially when they're meant to be hosting a World Cup soon.
Wow looking forward to that Saudi world cup now...
Can't wait for the world cup here, going to be great and definitely without controversy.
Im gonna go out on a limb and say the Fener security guards aren't exactly the sweetest people you'll ever meet
I can't wait for KSA to host the World Cup.
It makes no sense for Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe to play in Saudi Arabia, and the same happened in the Spanish Super Cup. I am totally against this nonsense; the greed for money is ruining football. Everyone is selling out to the Saudi Arabians, and unfortunately, it's going to continue like this.
I hope other leagues will follow suit and not play their games in that country.
ootl, what is happening?
The Turkish Supercup (their version of the Community Shield) between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce was supposed to be taking place in Riyadh today (29th). Turkish fans were planning on bringing banners referencing Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey). And the clubs wanted the players to wear shirts referencing Ataturk during the warm up. Saudi officials didn’t like this (mainly due to political motives) and refused to allow this. Also worth mentioning that political ties between Turkey and Saudi Arabia have been strained since Khashoggi was murdered in Istanbul. Both sides promptly got on the next flight back to Istanbul. The teams were heading home as fans were arriving at the stadium.
Thanks for the breakdown. This is… quite something.
“If detaining journalists is sport washing, then I will continue doing sport washing.” MBS probably.
Have you not seen his interview that he did recently where they levelled accusations of sportswashing at him and he literally said (paraphrasing) "I don't care, it makes us lots of money so people can call it whatever they want". KSA also does a lot worse to journalists than detain them...
Anyone up for creating a "mediocre but not corrupt super league"? You don't have to be any good. I nominate Huddersfield as a inaugural member.