I'm a long-time Saudi dissident — Newcastle United have no idea what they're getting into

As the English Premier League deliberates whether to accept Saudi Arabia’s offer to purchase a majority stake in Newcastle United, it should be beware of the buyer. Today’s cash infusion could well prove tomorrow’s liability. Morally, politically and economically, English football and Britain’s citizens will pay a very high price if this sale is approved.

As a long-time Saudi dissident and target of the monarchy’s ruthless security services, I know whereof I speak. My family and friends have been imprisoned and tortured by a regime that cannot tolerate even the mildest of criticism. In just the past week, I lost a friend, mentor and towering human rights figure, Dr Abdullah Al Hamed, who died in prison after Saudi authorities refused to allow him the medical care necessary to save his life. He took his last breath shackled to a bed. Other citizens who peacefully advocate for civil and human rights routinely disappear, are denied visits by family members or defense counsel, and are held without charge or are tried in kangaroo courts.

More recently, the Saudi police shot to death a tribal activist who refused to let the government bulldoze his home to make way for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s pet project NEOM — which, by the way, is funded largely by Newcastle United’s purchaser, the Public Investment Fund. Entire villages have been expropriated, over the objections of their citizens.

As if this were not enough, the agents of the Crown Prince have surveilled, beat up and imprisoned both UK residents and American nationals who question the “enlightened” rule of Al Saud dynasty. My cousin, Badr al Ibrahim, is a US citizen who today languishes in a Saudi jail because he wrote articles that the government did not like.

Currently before the British courts is the case of Ghanem Al Dossari, a Saudi dissident living in the UK under asylum and police protection. Al Dossari alleges that he was physically attacked and electronically surveilled by the Saudi state in retaliation for his criticism of the regime. And let’s not forget Hatice Cengiz, the star-crossed widow of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who US intelligence believes was the object of Saudi surveillance in London last May, seven months after Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Even if one chooses to ignore one’s moral qualms about this deal, the economics of it don’t make sense either. NUFC’s purchaser, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, is an unreliable and utterly non-transparent partner.

The Wall Street Journal has reported: “The fund has invested billions of dollars in global markets with little of the discipline and institutional controls typical of investment funds of its size”. Due diligence and “know your customer” best practices are routinely sacrificed to personal expediency. Current and former fund officials have said that CEO Yasir Al Rumayyan often ignores the advice of the Public Investment Fund’s investment committees and risk managers.

The notion that Newcastle United’s new owners would use their cash to transform the club into a football powerhouse along the lines of Manchester City is a pipe dream. With the price of oil tumbling to below $20 per barrel, Saudi Arabia is bleeding money, and the twin shocks of oversupply and crashing demand in energy markets mean that this hemorrhaging will continue for some time to come. The stewards of Saudi Arabia’s economy will soon come under strong domestic pressure to devote their shrinking resources to the welfare of their own citizens, rather than to high-priced transfer fees.

Despite the obvious belt-tightening that is required, Mohammed bin Salman continues to pursue costly monuments to his vanity at the expense of his people. While it is unlikely that the Crown Prince will suddenly become a responsible steward of Saudi Arabia’s wealth were the Premier League to reject this sale, it certainly should not be an enabler of bad behavior.

The English Premier League is on the verge of making an own goal of historic and catastrophic proportions. Saudi ownership of Newcastle United exposes the EPL to reputational and legal risk.

The policies and practices of the government of Saudi Arabia and its sovereign wealth fund run contrary to everything that Great Britain stands for: the rule of law, human rights and the notion of fair play. Do you really want to trade your good name and the interests of English football fans for a paltry $300 million?

Ali Al-Ahmed is the Director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, DC