Is a major scandal over the sale of Newcastle United to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund about to engulf the club? And perhaps cause embarrassment to some high-profile politicians too? Leaked WhatsApps sent by Amanda Staveley (the businesswoman who helped negotiate the deal) made the front page of the Daily Telegraph yesterday. They suggest that assurances given during the takeover that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was not personally managing the deal were not quite accurate.
Mohammed Bin Salman will probably have no direct role in the running of the club
Staveley’s WhatsApps reveal that a delicate stage of the negotiations the Crown Prince was ‘losing patience’. Does that mean that the Gulf potentate was really calling the shots? There are also references to a minister having done all that they could, and ‘pushing behind the scenes’. ‘Their preference is for the deal to go ahead’, Staveley’s WhatsApps say. Why did they care so much?
The controversy over the Saudi prince’s potential involvement stemmed from his alleged role in the murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018. A
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