Ben Jacobs has been speaking on the NUFC Matters YouTube channel about a big off-field decision PIF could make that would impact Newcastle United.
The Magpies have recently launched their controversial third kit, which resembles a lot of similarities to the Saudi Arabia national kit, which has caused a lot of debate within football.
Given the club’s very close ties to Saudi Arabia, it would not be unthinkable for Newcastle to establish some links to teams in the Middle East to send players out there or vice-versa, and Jacobs believes something more permanent and prominent could be around the corner.
The journalist claimed that something along the lines of a football school endorsed by Newcastle could soon appear in Saudi Arabia.
He said: “That’s where you may see some movement over the course of the next 12 months – so could Newcastle, for example, open up an official football school in Saudi Arabia?
“I would say that that is pretty likely, and then the club get a bit of branding out there, but it’s actually just run by a third party under the Vision 2030 tenet, which is essentially to create more jobs and a better lifestyle and encourage health and exercise, so like a Newcastle United football school would very much fall into that category.”
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TIF Thoughts on Newcastle’s links to Saudi Arabia…
For the Premier League to have approved Newcastle’s takeover, which was largely backed by PIF, the league required assurances that there were no official links between them and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and a potential football school may raise the level of scrutiny.
However, from Newcastle’s point of view, other clubs such as Manchester City do a lot out in Abu Dhabi, where their owner is from, so there would be very little difference if they went out to Saudi Arabia and started to make their brand bigger over there.