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AL-KHASRAH, SAUDI ARABIA: The idea hit Abdullah Alsulmi earlier this year, while he was watching a television show in which a senior Qatari official promised an “exceptional” experience at the upcoming World Cup.
His excitement building, the 33-year-old Saudi recalls thinking: “I will go to Doha no matter what, even if I have to walk!“
It was an unlikely beginning to what has become an audacious adventure dismissed by some of Alsulmi’s own relatives as “crazy“: A two-month, 1,600-kilometer (1,000-mile) solo trek from his native Jeddah to the Qatari capital.
Alsulmi says the journey, faithfully documented for his thousands of Snapchat followers, is meant to highlight regional enthusiasm for the first World Cup in the Middle East — which Saudi officials have pitched as a milestone “for all Arabs.”
“We want to support the World Cup,” Alsulmi told AFP one day last week as he sheltered from the midday sun near roadside shrubs in the town of Al-Khasrah, 340 kilometers southwest of Riyadh.
Wearing a wide-brim hat and a backpack to which he’d affixed Saudi and Qatari flags, he said: “I consider myself like a Qatari who is very interested in this World Cup and its success.”
Alsulmi has experience with extended treks in Canada and Australia, where he used to live, yet those pale in comparison to the rigors of traversing the Arabian Peninsula.
He typically sets out at sunrise and walks until 10 or 10:30 a.m., but then the heat forces him to break for a few hours before resuming in the afternoon and continuing until sundown.
Occasionally he walks at night to maintain his goal of around 35 kilometers per day.
To keep his load light, Alsulmi subsists on food he can buy at petrol stations, often chicken and rice, while showering and washing his clothes at mosques.
His social media posts capture details of life on the trail, from the mundane to the menacing: His nightly search for a spot to sleep, and the time he eyed a scorpion dozing dangerously close to his tent.
He also records conversations with Saudis he meets along the way, many of whom offer snacks and juice to keep him going.
“There are moments of ups and downs, but when I meet people and hear these sweet words — ‘We will follow you on your account and support you’ — this encourages me to finish,” he said.
Straying from the main roads as often as he can, he says he has been rewarded with a taste of the varied scenery on offer in the Kingdom — something he didn’t fully appreciate before.
“Walking from Jeddah to Doha, every 100 kilometers is different. I mean, the first 100 kilometers there are sand dunes, then mountains, and then comes empty land, then farms,” he said.
“I am going through all terrains in one country in two months. This is a beautiful thing.”
Alsulmi hopes that by posting about his experience, he can inspire other Saudis to consider trekking through their homeland.
“When I do this, I want to convey to people that hiking and walking is a beautiful sport, even if the weather is difficult here in Saudi Arabia, even if the terrain is difficult. We can do it,” he said.
“It is a sport for simple people. You only need a bag and a few simple things, and a tent and nature.”
If all goes according to plan, Alsulmi will arrive in Doha in time for Saudi Arabia’s opening showdown against Argentina on Nov. 22.
It will be a moment of divided loyalty, since Argentina is his favorite team.
Four days later, he has a ticket for the Green Falcons’ match against Poland.
His hopes are high for a Saudi squad that has now qualified for six World Cups but advanced to the knockout stage just once, during its 1994 debut.
“This year we have good players. The coach is the great French coach (Herve) Renard,” he said.
“We expect and hope that this year the team will deliver an exceptional performance.”
DUBAI: Police fire tear gas into a crowd of soccer fans, who panic and rush for the exits.
There are so many trying to escape and some of the gates are locked. The stadium becomes a death trap.
People are trampled in the desperation. Others suffocate, crushed by the weight of bodies around them.
They are the details of last weekend’s soccer game in Malang, Indonesia, where 131 people, some of them children, died in a crush after police fired tear gas at fans of home team Arema FC.
It’s also the story of the Estadio Nacional disaster in Lima, Peru, in 1964, when 328 died in a panic sparked by tear gas. It was the same in Accra, Ghana, in 2001, when 126 died.
Soccer’s three worst stadium tragedies occurred over a 60-year span but are so strikingly similar that its clear lessons haven’t been learned.
The world’s most popular game has historic problems of hooliganism, and Indonesia has its share of team rivalries that have led to violence. But Arema had the only fans in the stadium. Just them and the police.
“Not a single rival supporter. How can that match kill more than 100 people?” said a sobbing Gilang Widya Pramana, the president of Arema.
The blame has landed at the feet of the police, like it did in Lima, and Accra, and elsewhere.
Some Arema supporters rushed the field in anger at their team’s loss. Yet, major soccer tragedies have almost always been caused, experts say, by a heavy-handed overreaction by police and poor stadium safety. Firing tear gas in enclosed stadiums is universally condemned by security experts. Locking exits goes against all safety regulations.
“Actually, fans killing other fans is an incredibly rare thing,” said Prof. Geoff Pearson of the University of Manchester, an expert on the policing of soccer fans. “When we look at pretty much all the major (soccer) tragedies, I can’t think of an exception off the top of my head, all of these have been caused by unsafe stadiums or practices, or inappropriate policing.”
Indonesia, a country of 273 million, is due to host next year’s Under-20 World Cup. It is soccer’s “sleeping giant,” said James Montague, a journalist and author who traveled there to watch games with fans.
Montague found a passion for soccer that matches, even outstrips, the game’s leading countries. He said he also found “largely decrepit” stadiums, corruption and mismanagement everywhere and the kind of police that would “smash me in the face with a baton just because I’m standing there watching a football match.”
Soccer was believed to have reached a turning point 33 years ago with the Hillsborough disaster, where 97 Liverpool fans died as a result of a crush at a stadium in Sheffield, England, in 1989. Police were eventually found to have been to blame for letting fans into an already overcrowded section but it took 27 years before the police’s lies and coverups — blaming drunken fans for the deaths — were fully exposed.
Hillsborough led to sweeping reforms in English soccer, making stadiums safer and demanding police change.
That echoes in Indonesia this week. So do calls for justice. Indonesian authorities have laid charges against six people for the crush, three of them police officers.
But a lack of ultimate accountability — “the state closes ranks,” Montague said — has also been a repeat feature.
A BBC report on the 50th anniversary of the Lima disaster found that only one police officer had been sentenced for soccer’s deadliest stadium tragedy, getting 30 months in prison. More than 30 years after Hillsborough, one official has been convicted of a safety offense and fined. Police were acquitted after Africa’s worst sports disaster in Accra despite an inquiry that blamed them for the reckless firing of tear gas and rubber bullets.
Soccer authorities stand helpless. FIFA, the governing body of world soccer based in Switzerland, has recommendations that tear gas should never be used in stadiums. But soccer bodies can’t dictate the tactics used by a country’s security forces, even if it’s at a soccer game.
“It is all down to the organized culture of the police,” said Ronan Evain, executive director of Football Supporters Europe, a group that represents fans’ interests.
Soccer’s inability to interfere in domestic security matters is underlined by the situation in Egypt, where a 2012 stadium riot that killed 74 people came amid a decade of harsh crackdowns on fans by security forces. Dozens of fans have been killed in encounters with police at and away from games, and some fan groups were declared terrorist organizations because they were critical of the Egyptian government, which has been widely accused of human rights violations.
The African soccer body is even based in Cairo but has no authority to intervene.
It’s the police, Pearson said, who have to be “willing to admit their mistakes and learn from their mistakes.” But that kind of institutional change is grudging.
Hillsborough did bring effective reform for England, but it stands almost alone. Lessons were lost after Lima and Accra, and the same can happen again after Indonesia.
Only days after last weekend’s tragedy, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at soccer fans outside a stadium in Argentina and one person died in the chaos.
George Lawson worked at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation when he raced to the unfolding tragedy at Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra 21 years ago. He remembered being stunned by the sight of dozens of bodies lying on the ground. He recalled his country coming to a standstill.
But while an inquiry demanded the stadium be totally upgraded, the only lasting change has been a bronze statue erected outside as a memorial, with the inscription: “I am my brother’s keeper.”
“When things happen like this, there’s a hullabaloo,” Lawson said. “And after some time people forget about it.”
NEWCASTLE: It was said to be the takeover to end all takeovers. No deal had even come close, not even the mega-rich buyouts of Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain by Dubai and Qatar-based investors.
It was a deal that promised so much for a fanbase so willing, and a club so ripe for the picking — but has it delivered?
Here we take a look at what has actually changed in the 12 months on Tyneside since the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia takeover of Newcastle United, as seen through the eyes of fans — with hints of what’s to come through the words of PIF chief and Magpies’ chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
So what has changed?
So much in many ways, and yet so little in others — although the last bit must be caveated with the word pending.
This takeover, and the preamble to its being, can be divided into two very distinct categories — what the deal can bring for the football club, and what it can bring to the wider community in the northeast of England.In a football sense, Newcastle United is a club transformed.
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Long gone are the days of flirting with relegation back to the Championship, England’s second tier, a place United stooped to twice during previous owner Mike Ashley’s reign. Now, a fresh optimism that European football can return to St. James’ Park, something seen just once in more than a decade and a half.
And how has that been achieved — well, just by trying to run Newcastle like a proper, functioning Premier League football club, not the dysfunctional mess Sports Direct tycoon Ashley presided over.
Jobs and roles that were previously filled by just one person, now have teams of operatives. Key positions such as chief executive and director of football have been stocked with well-qualified personnel.
There is a real sense that from the boardroom to the dugout and on to the pitch, every person at the club is pulling in the same direction, has the same end goal — and the goal is, of course, success and silverware on Tyneside.
Manager Steve Bruce was replaced with a self-confessed workaholic and “football geek” Eddie Howe.
His fresh, modern approach to the game could not be more at odds with his ex-Manchester United predecessor’s old pals, 1990s football playbook. And it was something the players, many of those starring now were already here before the takeover, have commented on.
There is a clear style of play, an identity about Howe’s Newcastle — when has that ever been said about Newcastle in recent years?
Howe is squeezing the best out of some cast aside by Bruce, such as Fabian Schar and others, while complementing them with flashes of new-found brilliance from Bruno Guimaraes et al.
Signing the likes of Bruno has been one of the biggest changes, too. The summer of 2021 was one of pain and frustration as United failed to capitalize on a decent end to the 2020-21 campaign under Bruce, by signing just one player permanently, Joe Willock. And he was a player who was already at the club on loan.
Since that window, about £200 million has been splashed out on various rising stars from across the Continent. United broke their transfer record to sign Alexander Isak, who was very much on Man City’s radar, I’m told, had any hiccups occurred in the deal to sign Erling Haaland last summer.
The small but important details have not been overlooked either. The need to improve the training ground, so often a source of embarrassment, even for United managers, has already been addressed, with much more to be completed during the winter break for Qatar World Cup, during which United are expected to spend some time in Saudi. A new facility, on the boundaries between leafy Gosforth and Brutalist 1960s new town Killingworth, is in the pipeline.
Club legend Alan Shearer has been honored, not once but twice. That was unthinkable under Ashley, who had sacked the former England captain. His statue moved back on to club land and the bar formerly of his name, returned to its former glory, one befitting of a player who netted 206 goals for the football club.
Care and attention after years of neglect has not gone unnoticed by the receptive Geordie public, who now fill out the ground again, only years after Ashley was forced to give away 10,000 free season tickets in order to keep attendances high.
And that brings me on to the second part of this — what has the deal done for the region.
Well, beyond training ground hints, the answer, at this stage, is very little.
That, however, is definitely set to change. Investment is afoot, it’s understood, with the owners’ plans likely to see cash and potentially jobs flood to the region.
For now, though, that side of the deal is yet to really come to fruition, hence the idea of pending.
The fans’ view “Imagine what this will look like in two years’ time?”
Newcastle has always been famous the world over for the undying, unwavering love of its fans. And 12 months to the day since tens of thousands of them flocked to St. James’ Park, their cathedral on the hill, to mark the passing of the Ashley regime and the rebirth of the sleeping giant on the Tyne, they remain at the very heart of the club’s success moving forward.
“The last year has demonstrated what every Newcastle United fan knew all along. We knew that with the right owners the football club and the city would take off,” said Alex Hurst, of NUFC fanzine True Faith.
“We knew that the club would once again become integral in the lives of millions of people.
“After years of the club being talked down and mocked, the rest of the league and wider football media has had to come to terms with their beloved six becoming seven. Newcastle United have dominated two transfer windows and beaten much of the Premier League since the takeover, despite years of neglect and an almost non existent infrastructure away from the pitch. Imagine what all of this will look like in two years’ time?
“This was supposed to be the hardest part for owners, fans and footballers. Everything has gone to plan so far. Everything. This twelve months has been special but I think everyone in football is aware, they’ve seen nothing yet.”
As his words detail, Hurst is unequivocal in his view that this deal has had an inherently positive impact on what it means to be associated with Newcastle United.
That’s a view echoed by YouTuber and NUFC Matters podcast host, Steve Wraith.
“When I stood at Molineux in October 2021 in the rain watching another abject display from Steve Bruce’s beleaguered Newcastle team, never could I have imagined that we would be in the position that we now find ourselves in,” he said.
“The takeover of our club by PIF and partners was something our supporters had craved throughout 14 years of misery under Mike Ashley’s ownership.
“In the last 12 months we have retained our premier league status with a hungry new manager in Eddie Howe and made shrewd signings such as Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Bruno Guimaraes and a club record signing in Alexander Isak.
“More importantly the new owners have given the supporters hope and with that hope have reunited the fanbase.
“A club disunited for over a decade can once again proudly call itself Newcastle United.”
The future — what next for Newcastle United?
We will leave this to the man who basically holds the keys to the kingdom, the man co-owner Mehrdad Ghodoussi called “boss” on Twitter on Thursday evening, Al-Rumayyan. Often seen as a bright, smiley face in the directors box at SJP and sometimes with a black and white flag in his hand, Al-Rumayyan and PIF, have been welcomed into the club by the people of the region with open arms.
After 15 years of a financial tyrant, resistance was never expected to be encountered — one of the reasons it was such an investable project.
So many predicted the club would be run like PSG or City. So far, it hasn’t. This isn’t about Galactico signings, more medium to long-term deals, improvement from the grassroots up. Every deal must have value for money. Too many sporting ‘projects’ have poured cash down the drain, not under Al-Rumayyan and PIF’s watch.
So why Newcastle and why the Premier League?
“So football is part of the 13 sectors that PIF are interested in. Football is certainly one of the most important sports, whether here or globally, it’s the number one sport,” said Al-Rumayyan.
“Why the EPL? Why the English League? Because it’s currently the greatest league in the world. It has no challengers.
“There are 20 teams, three that will suffer relegation, and three that will be promoted from the second tier. What distinguishes the English league is that any of the 20 teams could beat even the strongest team. The level of competition is extremely high.”
Bang for the buck was, and always is, the main consideration for PIF when investing in any project. NUFC is no different.
Al-Rumayyan explains: “When we looked at it, we considered the financial aspect.
“By the way, it wasn’t the first ‘offer’ that came our way from a club. We looked at clubs in Italy, in France, in Britain. So for example, in Britain, a club approached us to own 30 percent without having any say in its running.”
That is understood to be Manchester United.
He continues: “For £700 million sterling. But we bought Newcastle, 100 percent ownership was offered to us. But the party that brought us the opportunity, Amanda Staveley and her husband, said ‘we like it so much, we’d like to be with you’. Then the Reuben family, who are one of the biggest property developers, said ‘we’d like to come with you’. They were one of the leading developers in Newcastle, and I said excellent, let them join. So now they have skin in the game.
“We bought the club for a total of £350 million sterling compared to the 70 million for only 30 percent, or the 3.5 billion for Chelsea.
“So my potential is to go from 350 million to at least 3.5 billion, that’s 10 times the money. If I’d bought Chelsea, how high could the value go? 4 billion? 5 billion? So it’s pure investment, that’s the first thing.
“Number two, Newcastle is one of few one-club cities. Most cities have several clubs. The whole of Newcastle is behind you, 950,000 people, and more than 1 million in the wider region, are all fans. We have about 52,000 seats at the stadium, all sold out.”
And is there potential for wider investment in the northeast of England?
“When you look at it from every angle, there is potential. The chief strategists for international investments are looking at the property and infrastructure developments that we will be involved in in that area,” said Al-Rumayyan.
“So the potential in terms of investment is huge, and at the same time it gives us a platform going forward for sports investment.”
What of the club’s on-field ambitions? Al-Rumayyan addressed that very subject in a club statement released to fans on the eve of the one-year deal anniversary.
And what’s certain is, PIF is aiming BIG. They’re not here to take part, they’re here to take over.
“We told you that we wanted to build, over time, a consistently successful team. And we told you that we were focused on long-term success,” he stated.
“There is still a long way to go, but each season is a building block toward our objective – to challenge for trophies both domestically and in Europe. The Club we are building is made up of people who understand our long-term vision, and who understand the patience and persistence that it will take to achieve those goals.”
While that rhetoric will get the juices flowing for Newcastle fans, it feels like only the opening stanza of a wonderful, PIF-orchestrated symphony on Tyneside.
Ask any United fan and they’d tell you they’d be happy with one trophy in their lifetime, bearing in mind the club has not won a major domestic honor since 1955. Just one? That’s the bare minimum for those at the top of the football club — and Newcastle and its fans are all for it.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the Newcastle United takeover, club Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan delivered a special open letter to the club’s fans.
“The first game after the takeover will live long in my memory,” he said recalling the home game against Tottenham on Oct. 17, 2021 and the “feeling of pride at holding the black and white scarf entering the stadium.”
So much has happened since that day, and I was lucky to experience many of those moments both in Newcastle and at home in Saudi Arabia.
Here are my main takes from a memorable year.
Hope returns
When Keith Patterson, a popular Newcastle fan who helped push the takeover, was asked about the biggest change at the club after the Saudi-backed purchase, he replied simply: “Hope.”
That there is the hope of winning a trophy — something that could not be envisioned a year ago — is a sign of just how ambitious Newcastle United, both the club and its fans, have become.
It might not come this season, but now there is real hope that a first trophy since the 1969 Fairs Cup is on the way.
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Pre-season sets tone for new campaign
Winning the Premier League is not the target for Newcastle right now, and supporters know that a far more realistic target is winning a domestic cup at Wembley or reaching Europe next season.
The club’s intentions were clear from the pre-season camps in Austria and Portugal, which saw impressive displays against Benfica and Atlanta in particular.
With an improved, settled squad in place, the feel-good factor of the summer has carried over into the season.
Intelligent recruitment
The January transfer window set a high bar for Newcastle’s recruitment, with Kieran Trippier, Dan Burn, Bruno Guimaraes and Chris Wood joining on a full-time basis.
And things have only improved since then, with the summer window seeing the likes of Nick Pope, Sven Botman and Alexander Isak joining Eddie Howe’s squad.
During the summer, fans were impatient for big-name signings, but the management’s vision was different, with Howe prioritizing individuals with the right personality for his team before anything else.
Off the pitch, recruitment has also been meticulous, the club biding their time to get the right people in place. From signing Howe himself, to adding Sporting Director Dan Ashworth, CEO Darren Eales and others, Newcastle now has a management team that is the envy of most clubs.
A promising start to the Premier League season
The start to the 2022-23 season could not be more different from that of last season, when Newcastle failed to win any of their first 14 fixtures.
This time around, Newcastle kicked off with a 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest and after eight matches find themselves seventh in the league and eyeing Europe.
The 11 points have come from two wins, five draws and only one narrow loss to Liverpool. Some of those draws could have been wins as well, and while a lot of hard work still awaits Howe and his squad in the coming months, no one is complaining about this positive start.
Upcoming challenges off the pitch
Newcastle’s to-do list remains a long one, and one of the challenges — a welcome one — is how to meet the demands of fans.
St. James’ over-52,000 capacity could be sold several times over for every match. There has even been talk of a brand-new stadium with an 80,000 capacity.
In theory, that may solve a problem, but in reality, it will initiate a bigger one. St. James remains the heart of the city, and its location is culturally and financially precious.
Far more likely is redeveloping this historic home.
Mehrdad Ghodoussi, part-owner of Newcastle United, has made it clear that the club is in talks with the city council to try and expand St. James’ capacity.
Leaving the stadium, he said, would be “like tearing your soul out.”
He added: “There are a lot of things that need to happen first. If we can get it to 60,000 or 65,000, it will be amazing, and we’ll look at every possibility.”