Jurgen Klopp was quick to point out the lack of scrutiny over owners in the Premier League prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as shared in a tweet by PA Media’s Carl Markham.
As Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich’s, own personal links to Vladimir Putin became clearer, the UK government took steps to seize assets based in the country, preventing the Blues from selling tickets and merchandise.
With direct links to the Saudi and UAE regimes, Newcastle and Manchester City’s ownership likewise invite investigation and critique if we are to look at them through the same critical lens we’re currently perceiving the London-based outfit with.
Given the allegations around the murder of a journalist, Jamal Kashoggi, authorised by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, not to mention the human rights abuses reportedly taking place in the United Arab Emirates, one has to question how the Premier League failed to dive deeper into such concerns.
Going forward, it’s clear that the English top-flight needs a far more stringent screening process to challenge and prevent sportswashing.
For the meantime, however, we must question why the strong sanctions have only been applied to Chelsea when one might argue there is a similar justification for punishing the likes of Newscastle and the Cityzens.
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Every PL club is owned by dodgy characters-including ours. No one becomes a billionaire by being a good human being. Owners all use our clubs for their own purposes. Newcastle and City aren’t really different from other clubs, they just have more cash. Kick the rich out of football. Money doesn’t talk, it swears!
We would have to sanction virtually every club because China and America are certainly no angels but that gets conveniently forgotten about
The Premier League could also investigate clubs that take illegal money from companies who have been found guilty of money laundering, Standard Chartered for example
Typical of the London middle class hypocrites. The false left. If it had been a London club or Man u none of this woul
d be said
How about American Owners bombing the Middle East in the name of oil Take off those rose tinted glasses sunshine
The difficulty with your comments about United are that they are based on incorrect “facts” and are rather divorced from reality.
The same could be said of ALL non-English owned clubs – and that includes Liverpool