Before his team left England, Newcastle United’s coach, Eddie Howe, was pressed about the purpose of the team’s weeklong visit to Saudi Arabia. Howe insisted the motivations were purely sporting, an effort to fine tune the team’s preparations in a warm-weather setting ahead of the second half of the season. But the club faced criticism from human rights groups like Amnesty International, which said the trip risked becoming “a glorified P.R. exercise for Mohammed bin Salman’s government.”
On Friday, Howe and his players were reported to have met with representatives of the P.I.F., whose board includes a half-dozen senior Saudi government officials.
“I think it just shows, No. 1, why the sale was problematic in the first place and not separate from the Saudi state,” Adam Coogle, a deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, said of the trip. “No. 2, it shows they don’t care. They’re just going to flaunt it. They’re not even trying to pretend this isn’t what it is.”
A spokesman for P.I.F. declined a request for comment. The Premier League and Newcastle United declined similar requests on Friday.
The relationship between Newcastle and Saudi Arabia, though, continues to roil the Premier League. Late last year the league amended its regulations on sponsorships after rivals raised concerns about the prospect of a sudden rush of Saudi Arabian money flowing into the team’s accounts through deals with companies linked to its Gulf ownership.
Under a compromise agreement, the league said it would assess all “related party” sponsorships to ensure the agreements were made in line with fair market value.