GB News: Mark Dolan shuts down Newcastle takeover critics

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Speaking on his Saturday night show, Mr Dolan explained how the torrent of club chairmen and owners branding the takeover as morally questionable and unnaceptable given Saudi Arabia’s human rights track record is surprising as he launched a full-throated attack on the same people who desperately tried to break from the Premier League to form the elite members-only Super League competition despite a massive backlash.

Mr Dolan hammered: “Nineteen Premier League clubs are up in arms about the sale of Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United to Saudi investors

“I wonder if some of these clubs complaining now are the ones who disgracefully tried to destroy the Premier League with a breakaway Super League!”

He went on, questing whether these are “the same multi-billion pound organisations” who themselves have attracted investment from “sometimes less than conventional sources”.

Mr Dolan then changed tack and asked viewers to consider the ownership of other clubs such as Manchester United’s Glazer family who “immediately loaded” the club with millions of pounds worth of debt.

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While he also put Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich in the crosshairs too.

He noted how the Russian billionaire was allegedly denied a visa amid rising tensions between the UK and Russia after the 2018 Salisbury Novichok poisoning.

Under rules introduced in 2015, the Government can ask applicants to prove the source of their wealth.

A source close to the Russian tycoon told the BBC that his application to extend his investor visa had not been refused or denied. But it reported that Mr Abramovich withdrew his application and now holds an Israeli passport alongside his native Russian one.

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Mr Dolan instead went on to take a more pragmatic view on the Saudi takeover bid, adding how it is not realistic for businesses to turn their backs on an entire country for investment opportunities. He added the approach is the same for countries, which he suggested should not turn their back on global opportunities based on moral, cultural and historical differences.

The GB News host went on to highlight how the controversy surrounding the takeover bid is, in his view, hypocritical and “misguided”.

He said: “We do huge amounts of business here in the UK with Saudi Arabia and I guess in an ideal world we wouldn’t, but we don’t live in an ideal world… We do business with Russia and China too.

“To seek to overturn this much needed investment in a fabulous club and a brilliant city isn’t just misguided, unfair and wrong: it is deeply hypocritical too.”

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He added whether the same chairman of those Premier League clubs critical of the takeover will be boycotting the next World Cup in Qatar where human rights abuses are plentiful.

Mr Dolan slammed: “Where hundreds of immigrant workers fell to their deaths or died of dehydration building the stadia in which Premier League fat cats will be hoovering up prawn and cocktail sandwiches.”

He suggested that the Saudi investment is “a vote of confidence” in the UK and the Premier League as a global product.

Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, civil liberties and foreign policy decisions have all been pulled into the limelight following the takeover, which many critics say stands in contrast to British values. 

It comes as others have slammed arrival of the Saudi’s in British sport as morally questionable following the ordered killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in October 2018.

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