The two state-owned clubs meet in Europe’s top-tier competition on Wednesday with more than just three points at stake
It’s a question many football fans are beginning to grapple with: Could you support a team owned by a sovereign wealth fund? The bad press that has come with the takeovers at the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle has left some supporters facing moral quandaries.
Regardless of your opinion on the matter, there’s no doubt that Wednesday’s meeting between the two aforementioned clubs comes with a background narrative that this is a clash between two Middle Eastern states, rather than two historic football teams in Europe’s biggest club competition.
In one corner is Saudi Arabia and Newcastle; in the other Qatar-backed PSG. It’s a unique rivalry in that it is more based in the boardroom than on the pitch or in the stands, and a fairly new one – at least in terms of football – at that. There was a 10-year gap between the two clubs being purchased, with Qatari Sports Investments (QSI) buying PSG in 2011 before a consortium that was heavily backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) completed the purchase of Newcastle in 2021.ew in attendance at St. James’ Park will know nor care much for the potential geopolitical tensions behind the scenes, nor what it might mean for their owners were they to get the better of the other. The majority will be there to celebrate Newcastle’s return to the top table of European football, but this derby has plenty more resting on it than just three points.
Background tensions
Saudi Arabia versus Qatar is not a rivalry based on pedigree. The footballing history for either side couldn’t be more different. Saudi Arabia has a more-developed professional structure, as well as deeper footballing roots. The Saudi Pro League’s recent growth is not only a by-product of immense wealth and investment, but a greater respect of football culture from within the region. In the eyes of both sides, the two nations do not match-up in terms of footballing quality.
But there are external tensions at play here. In 2017, Saudi Arabia cut ties with Qatar outright, claiming that Qatari foreign policy clashed with Saudi interests in the Middle East. These issues seeped their way into football and sports media, as both sides attacked each other through the press, while Qatar weaponsied its sports networks.
PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khaleifi was at the centre of it all. He has long controlled beIN Sports, the middle east’s largest streaming and sports programming outlet. As tensions rose between the two countries, beIN disappeared from Saudi networks altogether. Saudi Arabia, in response, allegedly created their own pirate TV network, which Qatar took issue with.
These issues were, appropriately, reconciled by football. In 2019, Saudi Arabia agreed to participate in the Arabian Gulf Cup, held in Qatar, after threatening to boycott. Slowly, the two sides embraced each other in the media, and Saudis were allowed back on Qatari football coverage. Two years later, at around the same time PIF completed its Newcastle takeover, beIN reappeared on Saudi television. Everyone, it appeared, could watch football again.
Old tempers have still flared, though. An hour before the 2022 World Cup opener, and after agreeing to air 22 games for free, beIN stopped working in Saudi Arabia — with no clear cut explanation. And although many still accessed games through the illegal streaming services that run rampant in the region, it served as a reminder that things can get testy without warning.
Two takeovers, 10 years apart
It is with that backdrop, then, that we arrive at these two separate, but similar, projects. In terms of investing in a European club, Qatar got there first. In 2011, QSI, headed by former professional tennis player Al-Khelaifi, made quick work of their acquisition of PSG.
The process began in September 2010, with a meeting between then-French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, then-UEFA president, Michel Platini, the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and the Qatari prime minister. How that conversation went is unknown, but it’s claimed that it laid the groundwork for Qatar winning Platini’s vote to host the 2022 World Cup and helped seal the PSG takeover within 12 months.
Everything about Al-Khelaifi, by then the president of Al-Jazeera, was grandiose. He invoked Lionel Messi at his introductory press conference, pointing out that PSG were on the hunt for “the new Messi”. He spent big early, and went about building the most maximalist team Europe had ever seen. Paris was glamour, so he brought footballing glamour to Paris.
Saudi Arabia arrived on the scene 10 years later, though they needed 18 months to get the deal sorted. The British government rejected their attempts to buy Newcastle at the first time of asking, citing discomfort with the links between the Saudi ruling family and the nation’s Public Investment Fund.
Eventually, though, the deal got over the line, with Amanda Stavely, a Yorkshire-born businesswoman with experience in Middle Eastern investment, appointed as the public figurehead after buying 10 percent of the club. Their motto was different: Newcastle, they communicated, was not glitzy. Instead, they needed their fans, who had openly despised previous owner Mike Ashley, to fall in love with their team again.
Building a winning team
And so began the process of squad building. PSG wanted as many stars as they could find, and they wanted them immediately. Al-Khelaifi spared no expense in getting some of the brightest, most recognisable talents in football to Parc des Princes. It started with Thiago Silva, Edinson Cavani and David Luiz, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic soon followed. In 2013, a 37-year-old David Beckham was brought in on loan for half a season. A sceptic would point out that Laurent Blanc was appointed to manage the club by means of appeasement. After all, Paris needed a Frenchman somewhere.
And it only got bigger from there. In 2017, they activated Neymar’s €220 million (£190m/$241m) release clause at Barcelona, taking advantage of the Brazilian’s public desire to win the Ballon d’Or by giving him the kind of status — and salary — to match his lofty ambitions. Kylian Mbappe came later that summer as PSG suddenly boasted the two most expensive players on the planet.
Four years later and after countless Champions League failures, Al-Khelaifi went back on his initial promise to not sign Messi and acquired the Argentine legend, too. Here was a team of the 11 best players the Parisians could find, and while they were headline-grabbing names, plenty could see that there were tactical issues within the line-up. So that proved, continuing a pattern that has meant PSG have had seven different managers since QSI bought the club, and are yet to win the Champions League despite investing nearly €2 billion.
Perhaps it was because Newcastle couldn’t convince the same level of superstars to make northern England their home, but the PIF took a different route. They opted to outbid everyone else for the best upper-mid level talent in Europe they could find. In came a Kieran Trippier here and a Bruno Guimaraes there. Add in overpays for Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon before Sandro Tonali arrived in the summer of 2023, and the Magpies have assembled a very good line-up, with no clear superstars.
Eddie Howe, an English manager who would be easy for fans to root for, took over from Steve Bruce. Within 18 months, he took the Magpies from the relegation zone to the top four and their first Champions League campaign in two decades. Perhaps more importantly, this is a squad that is still developing.
The fan connection
Part of the PSG ownership’s problem is that they have never seemed to grasp what the fans want. The Collectif Ultras Paris have regularly spoken out again the ownership for years, angered by their neglect of top-tier French players. While prospect after prospect — Kingsley Coman, Christopher Nkunku and Adrien Rabiot, to name a few — left the club, fans were instead asked to embrace a litany of players they felt no connection with. Here was a distinctly Parisian supporters group, cheering for a team founded in the 1970s for the people of Paris, forced once again to get behind a remarkably un-French team.
That is, more broadly, why PSG fans have been accepting of Mbappe’s general mayhem in recent years. His repeated threats to leave, public complaints of how the team was assembled, and arguments with his team-mates on the pitch have all been accepted because of his citizenship. He may be a nightmare, but he’s a French one. That he’s very good at football also helps…
The PIF, meanwhile, have given the impression that they are more in touch with their fanbase. Shortly after the takeover, Stavely spoke of being a good “custodian of the club” and mentioned that she found it “touching” to talk about how much of a “community” Newcastle is. She insisted that she wanted the club to connect with the fans, and after the Ashley years, that was music to supporters’ ears.
And while PSG has let its academy kids go, Newcastle have worked hard to keep theirs around and find roles for them within the squad. Sean Longstaff is still a regular for the Magpies, while youngster Elliot Anderson was handed his debut at the end of last season to great fanfare. That boyhood Newcastle fans Dan Burn and Lewis Hall have been among the new arrivals has also helped fuel that connection with those in the stands.
So, who wins?
And what of the actual football match to be played here? These are two teams who are fighting hard to emerge from what is likely to be the most hotly-contested group in the competition.
Much of the pre-match hype has focused on it being Newcastle’s first home match in the competition since 2003, and whatever one may think of the route they have taken to get back here, it’s hard not to feel some kind of happiness for their long-suffering supporters.
That doesn’t mean, though, that they have the right — or even the means — to beat this PSG side. Luis Enrique is still figuring out how to integrate all 12 of his new signings into the team, while Mbappe’s fitness is a bit of a question mark, but they made things look remarkably easy against Borussia Dortmund two weeks ago.
They should still have enough to come away with what will likely prove to be a decisive win. Anything less, and Newcastle fans will truly be able to start dreaming about potential knockout ties in the new year.
What happens next?
At the end of the day, this is just one match, even if both ownership groups and the nations they represent might see it as a chance to gain bragging rights over the other. What is perhaps more interesting is where this battle for footballing supremacy in the Middle East goes next.
For all the negative headlines around it, Qatar 2022 was deemed a successful World Cup by those inside FIFA, and it’s reported that president Gianni Infantino is keen to take the tournament back to the region sooner rather than later. Saudi Arabia are the current favourites to host in 2034, with football just the latest sport they are ploughing cash into.
Golf, Formula One, boxing and UFC have all done deals with the Saudis in recent years, and the takeover of Newcastle is just one step towards them making a similar noise in football. PIF’s investment in the Pro League is unlikely to be a one-summer fling, with it likely that those in charge want the standout players at their inevitable home World Cup to be plying their trade for the likes of Al-Ittihad and Al-Nassr rather than Europe’s biggest clubs.
Qatar, of course, have seen their World Cup come and go, and its perhaps no coincidence that Neymar and Messi were let go by PSG almost as soon as that tournament was in the rear-view mirror. It remains to be seen whether QSI are willing to invest quite as much into PSG or any other club going forward, but that doesn’t mean the country is done with making its mark on the European game.
Sheikh Jassim, a member of the Qatari royal family, remains the frontrunner to complete the drawn-out takeover of Manchester United, and there will be others in the region who are keen to invest in or buy clubs outright over the next few years.
And so while the two clubs with the most Middle Eastern influence meet in the Champions League, this is unlikely to be a one-off in terms of the region having its say on the world’s biggest club competitions.