Quote Originally Posted by Jimmy Floyd View Post
I've watched what's happened in golf and I'm telling you, the PIF is an unstoppable force. Golf if anything is harder to buy as it has more pre-existing moral scruples and the blazers (small b) have/had more power. Football is defenceless.

I'd also be a bit worried or at least disappointed if I were a Newcastle fan, their plans are clearly a lot bigger than anything Abu Dhabi has done with City, it's a lot bigger than buying one club and trying to dominate. It's not even necessarily about getting people to their own league. It's about being in the room for every key decision, getting Aramco on every pitchside display, making Visit Saudi the number one corporate presence in the game, having the World Cup there, normalising Saudi Arabia in every way they can. It won't all happen at once but it's like the old boiling frogs thing, you'll look up and MBS will be at the helm of everything.
This is all bang on for my money. Forget about human rights, relevance and a proper place on the World Stage is what Saudi Arabia want and they're using the vast resources they have (can anyone compete? I genuinely don't know) to get it.

I know fuck all about golf, but haven't the PGA just completely folded as they realised they stood to lose everything if they didn't? If so, it's worth bearing in mind they did nothing to encourage it, whereas football has been sucking the desert cash cock for years now - The Premier League, UEFA, FIFA, they've all opened the door willingly and said come in. It looks like "thank you very much, we will" is the response.