Welcome to part four in our series about who owns the Premier League’s 20 clubs. Today, we look at the investors from Gulf states, why they invested in English football and who else might follow…
Khaldoon al Mubarak, Manchester City’s long-serving chairman, tends to shy away from the public spotlight. There are occasional in-house interviews to reflect on the club’s successes but seldom does he open himself up to wider questioning.
An exception to that rule came in 2009, a year on from City beginning life under its owners from Abu Dhabi. Khaldoon spoke at length with The Guardian newspaper to outline the long-term plans and ambitions for City, who at that time had gone 41 years without an English men’s league title.
“The UAE (United Arab Emirates) is different from other Arab countries,” said Khaldoon. “People think the Arab world is one but it is not. This (owning Manchester City) is showing the world the true essence of who Abu Dhabi is and what Abu Dhabi is about.”
Such projections, Khaldoon stressed, were an unintended consequence of the takeover that fundamentally altered English football but it is a quote that helps to capture the ongoing commitment after 16 decorated years.
Owning Manchester City carries abundant benefits for Abu Dhabi, even if this is considered a private investment from an owner who has only ever attended two games in 14 years. All those trophies won since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, signed off on a £200million buy-out have given City supporters the time of their lives and built up a self-sustainable asset that is at home with the elite. Importantly, though, it has also endorsed an oil-rich state that is home to less than four million people.
City have enjoyed unprecedented success over the last decade (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
City, as Khaldoon accepted long ago, had to become a vehicle for something more than just football. A club based 3,500 miles away could help place Abu Dhabi on the map, heightening international relevance and appeal. And few would suggest it has fallen short.
City’s was a takeover that pushed us towards the very modern term of “sportswashing” but it has yielded more than just reputational improvements in a part of the world where Amnesty International says freedom of expression is unduly restricted.
“Sportswashing is shorthand for something that’s far more complex but there is something new about states owning football clubs,” says Nick McGeehan, director at FairSquare, the human rights group.
“In terms of Abu Dhabi’s reputation, it’s been about normalisation as much as anything. It’s about conveying the messaging that this is a sensible and responsible business partner, somewhere you could go on holiday. It’s almost that Abu Dhabi and its brands become part of the UK.
“In that sense it’s been very effective. At times it’s shone a light on some of the nasty stuff but that’s probably been outweighed by the numerous times they’ve used the club to present a different sense of themselves. It’s a branding vehicle for them.”
The foundation of City Football Group (CFG) in 2013 extends the club’s influence beyond the UK, too. Manchester City are now one of 12 clubs in an operation that has bases in India, Australia, Japan, China and Brazil. Half of them have City bolted on to the end of their name, most notably the Major League Soccer team New York City.
It has brought success that undoubtedly caught Saudi eyes.
Thirteen years after Manchester City had been bought by Sheikh Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) successfully overcame obstacles to join their geographical next-door neighbours in the Premier League. The £300million takeover of Newcastle United, patient and protracted, added representatives from a second Gulf state to English football’s top division in 2021.
Saudi’s plans for football go far beyond Newcastle, to hosting the 2034 World Cup and building a domestic league that is home to the stars.
Owning a Premier League club, though, has the potential to be more than just a sound long-term financial investment. Manchester City are the all-conquering case in point.
“If we transported back to 2008 and asked most people what they knew of Abu Dhabi, most people in the UK wouldn’t have a clue,” says Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at SKEMA Business School in Paris. “Now their knowledge of Abu Dhabi mostly begins and ends with Manchester City.”
Everything has changed in the last 16 years. City were a middling Premier League club in deteriorating health when seeking a buyer in the summer of 2008. The previous season had concluded with a catastrophic 8-1 loss away to Middlesbrough and the final table had both Blackburn Rovers and Portsmouth finishing higher.
Then along came Sheikh Mansour, brother to Abu Dhabi’s ruler Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ), to clear the debts of its previous owners and begin a £1.3billion transformation that would eventually see Manchester City crowned champions of Europe in 2023.
City manager Pep Guardiola meets Sheikh Mansour in March 2018 in Abu Dhabi (Victoria Haydn/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
“There’s this cognitive behavioral process called image transfer,” says Chadwick. “Because people think Harry Styles is cool then if I stand next to him they’ll think I am too. Manchester City, by becoming successful, have conferred a similar type of image upon Abu Dhabi.
“Keep in mind what you’ve got in Abu Dhabi. You’ve got the Sorbonne, arguably one of the most prestigious universities in the world, you’ve got Ferrari World, perhaps the most prestigious car brand in the world, you’ve got the Louvre, the most prestigious art gallery in the world.
“The brand proposition of Abu Dhabi is about prestige, status and guaranteeing that if you engage with Abu Dhabi then you’re going to get the best. Manchester City needs to succeed in the context of that.”
City have become a remarkable success story. Their legacy will be shaped by the 115 Premier League charges that still hang over them but they have instilled strategy and professionalism that rivals, like Manchester United, are now attempting to replicate.
Their commercial income streams might be backed by so many companies with links to Abu Dhabi but this is a club that turned over £713million in its treble-winning season. The most recent Deloitte Football Money League, an annual assessment of Europe’s top clubs, had only Real Madrid generating more.
Forbes valued City as a £4.04billion asset last year to illustrate that Sheikh Mansour’s total investment in the club has likely trebled but quantifying other benefits is less straightforward.
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“Owning Manchester City is associated with success and investment and I think it does change that image of what Abu Dhabi is and what it represents,” says Steve Cockburn, Head of Economic and Social Justice at Amnesty International.
“Manchester City is one of the most extraordinary brands you can get (in) the sport that’s watched and cared about more than any other in the world so it’s a quite incredible investment really.
“The investment funds of these Gulf states have all been used to diversify their domestic economies because the oil will run out. They’re investing in property all over the world and that helps create dependencies diplomatically too. That’s important. The amount of investment in our economy in the UK creates a strategic dependency with the UK government. That feeds into diplomacy, to soft power.”
Amanda Staveley, the British business executive, is the thread that linked the arrivals of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia’s millions into the Premier League. After helping to broker the sale of Manchester City to Sheikh Mansour in 2008, she was part of the consortium, headed by Saudi’s PIF, that ushered in a new era for Newcastle United 13 years later.
The two deals, though, were very different. Although the Premier League had been comfortable enough giving the green light to City being bought by Abu Dhabi United Group, a private equity firm owned by Sheikh Mansour, it was much less welcoming to Saudi Arabia.
Only when “legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control Newcastle United” were given did the Premier League finally approve PIF buying an initial 80 per cent stake in the club, triggering wild celebrations outside of St James’ Park.
That PIF, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, is chaired by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), the Gulf nation’s de facto ruler, soon appeared to count for little once a long-running piracy case, in which Saudi broadcaster beoutQ was alleged to have illegally streamed footage from the Qatari firm and Premier League partner beIN Sport, was resolved.
Newcastle chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and Staveley at St James’ Park in October 2021 (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
English football, too, has responded very differently to the arrivals of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia. The first was the unknown, the second — for some, at least — was the unpalatable.
The intervening years had heightened misgivings over the growing involvement of Gulf states in football, with a thousand headlines written about human rights abuses in the run up to Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup.
Saudi Arabia already had their eyes on landing the 2034 World Cup but this was a country with deeper stains that stretched beyond its poor human rights record and oppression of the LGBT community. Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist critical of the regime, had been murdered inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul just two years before moves were made for Newcastle, with the CIA later concluding the killing had been ordered by MBS.
Amnesty International, among others, vocally opposed the PIF’s takeover of Newcastle and urged the Premier League to re-examine those assurances given last year after the club’s chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan, was described as a “sitting minister of the Saudi government” in a U.S. court.
Another sobering report was delivered by Human Rights Watch this week, who said PIF had facilitated and benefitted from human rights abuses. “(MBS) has used the Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s economic power to commit serious human rights violations and whitewash the reputational harm from these abuses,” said Joey Shea, Saudi Arabia researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Not that any of the objections make a difference. Saudi are in the Premier League building now and showing little sign of moving on, even if Newcastle have the feel of a less significant component in the Saudi machine. Next month, Saudi Arabia will be confirmed as hosts for the 2034 men’s World Cup and huge investment has lured previous Ballon d’Or winners Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema to the Saudi Pro League.
The wish is for Saudi to become a tourist destination, hosting elite events such as boxing, golf and esports. It all forms part of Saudi Vision 2030, a government programme designed by MBS to diversify the economy before natural resources — and the world’s dependency on them — expire. A thriving entertainment sector to suit the needs of its young population is also high on the agenda.
Newcastle’s takeover was celebrated on Tyneside (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
Newcastle, in the north east of England, do not have an obvious place in those domestic plans but, having already reached the Champions League once, it has the look of a sound investment.
“If we take Newcastle United as an example, this is just great value for money,” says Chadwick. “You buy Newcastle for £300million and what you’re buying is 24/7, 365-day exposure around the world.
“But what the Premier League enables is legitimacy and diplomacy. Let’s say you or I want to meet a UK government minister, it might take a while.
“If you own a football club, there’s a fast-track diplomacy that operates within football. It’s a form of diplomacy but there’s also a kudos and status that confers upon you a similar quality and characteristic. What financial value can you put on that? That £300m is nothing to have that kind of legitimacy.”
If Saudi’s introduction to the Premier League points tentatively towards a pattern that began with Abu Dhabi and Manchester City, the door is open for further investment from the Gulf states.
Qatari money was offered for Manchester United last year as a bid fronted by Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al Thani proposed a full takeover before Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his petrochemicals firm INEOS settled on a 27 per cent stake last year, while noises have long linked investors from Dubai, another UAE state, with Liverpool.
The Premier League has come to mirror the UK; open to the world for business and with assets for sale.
“Qatar is a really interesting one,” says Chadwick. “I speculate that we could see Qatar in the Premier League at some stage of the next five years… Maybe, just maybe, one of the London clubs would be attractive.
“The other one to look out for is Kuwait. The biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world is Norway but number two is Kuwait. Bigger than PIF, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain. We’re now hearing the first noises of Kuwait thinking maybe they should have some of that.”
Will we see a Qatari-backed bid for another Premier League club? (Matthew Ashton/AMA/Getty Images)
The bigger question, of course, is whether the Premier League should have left itself open to the possibility of state ownership. And how different is Gulf money to that flooding in from private equity companies based in the U.S.?
“I get worried as a football fan about states using our football clubs for other purposes and for other goals beyond what fans and communities want them to be for,” says Cockburn.
“It raises the bar for the amount of finances you need in football. States can underwrite their own risk. I don’t want our football clubs to become tools for foreign policy. That’s the risk.”
McGeehan concurs. “We should be deeply and profoundly concerned about state ownerships,” he says. “Everything is geared towards their political power and financial enrichment. It’s not a zero sum game, it comes at the cost of something.
“They could be the anchors that lead to the ultimate downfall of English football because they’re not interested in it as a competitive entity. They’re not interested in clubs as community and social institutions, they’re interested in them as levers for their own political power. That can only be damaging to the game.”
Whatever happens, money from the Gulf has ensured the Premier League will never be the same again.
(Top photos: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images, Richard Heathcote/Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
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