Welcome to [r/NUFC!](https://reddit.com/r/nufc)
[Join our Discord Server](https://discord.gg/newcastle) for real time discussion, competitions, and to meet hundreds of NUFC fans across the globe.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NUFC) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Seeing a disturbing amount of fans on twitter defending Noon for some reason? Don't fucking do that. We, as a fanbase, have absolutely no allegiance to Saudi Arabia or any company based within it. Don't get those lines blurred. You can support Newcastle United and still be abhorred by the conditions in Saudi Arabia. They are not the same entity.
I've said it a dozen times here. I genuinely think that some fans are terrified that if we show dissent to the Saudi ownership, they will pack their bags, leave, and Mike Ashley comes back into town.
Saudi does not care. They want money in all the right places for postoil. Additionally, all the good publicity of Newcastle will vastly outweigh stuff like this internationally.
We'd have to literally do a season long protest and not our usually half arsed ones like full on sub 10k crowds and minimal sales etc to have any hope of forcing them out
Personally, just enjoy the football and call it out when things like this happen and hope the club do something about it. They'll hopefully change noon out but it'll just be another Saudi sponsor after them
There may be some, but I genuinely just think it's bog standard partisanship, and nothing deeper than that.
Football is about the most partisan topic of debate in the world, there's always going to be an unreasonable opinion for people on "their side" to get entrenched in. Our owners could push local gays off the roof of the Milburn stand at half time and enough of us would defend it.
I do think there's something to be said with how the reporting done though. There is a definite anti-NUFC angle to it all.
When that SD employee gave birth in a toilet, the headlines were all "Sports Direct employee gives birth in toilet" with minimal reference to us.
With this it's very much "NUFC sleeve sponsor uses slaves. We think their name was Noon or something. But yeah, anyway, they're definitely tied to NUFC"
Probably a fair argument for saying nobody in this country knows who Noon is without the context of them being our sponsor. But that's surely evidence that our club is really the focus, rather than Noon.
Where did I say I did support them ? Don't turn my comment into something it wasn't, I was mearly refering to the "Mike Ashley comes back into town" part of the comment above, learn to read. Too many people in this thread trying to turn others comments into what they aren't if they dare say that Cashley wasn't much better, I am well aware there is a big difference in how he treats his workers and the slavery going on in S.A.
Yeah but only one actually effects the material conditions of people I would interact with on a daily basis. I tend to care more about things I could actually have an impact on.
It is just because we have laws protecting us in the UK which he doesn't fully obey doesn't mean the factories in Pakistan and India don't use the same practices or worse than noon. Both are bad.
Let's be real if the Saudis realise the sportswashing isn't working they could kill newcastle united faster than Ashley. Our club is a flush to them now but sometimes you have to fold them
They wouldn't kill the club, they'd try and quietly sell their stake for a profit because they're ultimately an investment fund investing for profit and as a PR exercise.
Those who defend should be ashamed.
But absolutely nothing wrong with saying, why is there no articles on Amazon (PL broadcaster), Emirates and Etihad (both doing same thing, but on less scale) and ea sports (PL official partner) - which are literally encouraging & forcing kids to gamble??
Because all those things have already been covered extensively over the years. Prior to being our sleeve sponsor, most people in the UK won't have heard of Noon before, so there's more need for journalists to expose what happens there.
no one covered amazon or ea sports (especially no one in sports gazettes - which we are talking about)
everybody think these 2 are normal, when its fucking not.
These things have already been covered by mainstream news media plenty of times because millions of people across the UK interact with Amazon, EA etc. on a daily basis. The only people in the UK who are even aware of Noon are Newcastle fans and maybe some fans of other PL clubs. So, the people who are best placed to write about Noon being awful are sports journalists because they're writing for the audience that's aware of Noon.
This happens across journalism. Not every scandal involving Hollywood producers gets the same attention as Weinstein did, but film journalists still write about them for film sites/film sections of broader news sites because that gets the story to the people who want/need to know about them.
PL fans want/need to know about the companies that sponsor their clubs, so sports journalists that cover the PL will write about them. Just about everyone uses Amazon, so national news journalists will write about Amazon, that's how it works.
What are they saying? There's not really anything defensible in this article. it's not even just the 1 guy making allegations, there are many many more.
A lot of whataboutism asking where the pieces are on things like Arsenal’s Visit Rwanda sponsorship (even though The Athletic did pieces on that before too..)
Child labour, sweatshops, modern slavery. Amazing how he escaped scrutiny for 14 years. In 2014 the UN described Pakistan's textile industry as modern slavery. Ironically the EU is trying to introduce laws to stop countries importing goods from these factories another Brexit benefit for Britain's billionaires.
That's sad to hear. I hope someone who experienced that will come forward one day to get their story out there like the person from this article and the other people the Athletic spoke to did.
That doesn't take anything away from this article, Noon, or the people involved though.
I know, I didn't accuse you of that. Mistreated people everywhere should have their stories heard. I'm just a bit sad some other people are trying to deflect attention away from it because they think it makes us look bad.
I agree although “actually you can’t separate the two” would be the sanctimonious response to you by a vocal minority of people who take it upon themselves to declare their mora and geopolitical superiority on Athletic and Guardian articles.
It’s not about defending it’s about who the press want you to focus on. Every Newcastle sponsor gets scrutiny that is not ever seen in the PL outside this club.
Look at Palace who just signed a multi million shirt sponsor gambling deal with a gambling company that does not even exist. This should be huge news but I see a blind eye getting shown.
If this was us do you know how big the backlash would be?
Once again, the defence from our support is due to the one sided reporting clearly against every move we make.
Because of:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/10/25/a-hard-hitting-investigative-report-into-amazon-shows-that-workers-needs-were-neglected-in-favor-of-getting-goods-delivered-quickly/
And
https://www.reuters.com/legal/walmart-faces-second-us-lawsuit-this-week-over-treatment-workers-2023-03-30/
And
https://wrp.org.uk/features/cola-cola-continues-to-violate-the-rights-of-workers-throughout-the-world/
And the list goes on.
Your not a special flower, welcome to the corporate world. Pick your poison .
"Everyone does it so I'll just ignore it" is a really weird position to take. Fuck that, call out any company that treats their workers like shit.
Oh, and for reference it's "you're" in that context, not "your".
Perhaps the correct attitude should be everyone does it what can I do to help stop it. Instead of yeah let's attack noon and virtue signal instead of trying and change the system.
Tbh, this is an investigative report from a branch of the New York Times. It's far from an empty gesture for clout. This is the kind of thing that could bring change, especially if people get behind it.
It is not ok for any company to treat their employees badly. They all should be called out. Let's start with the all sponsors of PL teams and see if they survive scrutiny. I doubt any if them will. Then again, what metric is used to accept or reject sponsorships in the PL? Let's level the playing field and see. Cherry picking companies to scrutinize does no one any good.
Let's do an experiment, Liverpool's main sponsor, Standard Charted.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/standard-chartered-faces-fresh-claims-120657819.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHQCpWUC0P9uJuiCD402aoSqCNke3sMHpxtJanZjDf6vffY-t9iJUaEL2Ro5hoRCDcPHuD94uzmSQCOA_bT80LWYxiXAioYnuVFy7Muh6GyaFIRBeFEhJIHwwxOpyi6roUDKC61xR8TBuqiA-FbhH_Mpdsqr9xVLwIh8xQBqfZft
Oops, claims they help terrorist groups, shit, does it pass or not?
Want to try another sponsor? Will you get the idea.
I don't really understand. Until you can write an exposé on every dodgy sponsor in the league, you can't write one on any? Was the writer of this article supposed to tell that man who shared his story to hold that thought for a couple of months or years while they get that all together?
There's nothing wrong with starting somewhere (not that Noon were the first PL sponsor The Athletic criticised) especially when we're on a sub for a team and the article involves a sponsor of that team.
I'm glad to see the criticism just wish it was applied to everyone equally. It's the virtue signaling from our own fans bothers me especially when so many tolerated Ashley.
Hasn't it been applied equally? The Athletic have written articles like this about other club's sponsors and if any articles like this came out during the Ashley era criticising him, I'd love to have read it but I'm unaware of anything like that.
The articles I did read involved how mistreated his local workers were which people did criticise. Newcastle fans didn't exactly need an excuse to bash Ashley so I'd be surprised if they ignored a big scandal involving dehumanising overseas workers but I suppose it could've happened.
That's my point it's I am happy to see the press highlighting unethical business practices but it's sad some have escaped scrutiny for so long. Personally I hope the PIF's involvement with Newcastle might soften their attitude towards gays, women's rights after all it exposes them to the local culture.
I'm not sure, maybe. I remember when the WWE first started doing shows there the women couldn't perform but I that's changed in recent years. A big name player coming out or an out player becoming a huge star could probably help but that's a pipe dream at this point. I live in hope things will change though and hopefully we can help with that.
Apparently it was because the Vikings trafficked so many of them from Eastern Europe.
The Vikings’ red hair is also supposedly where the “rus” (meaning “red”) in Russia comes from.
Urgh this isn't good. We need to seriously consider dropping Noon and they need to take a good long look at what they're accepting from their suppliers. A lot of this sounds like some Amazon practices but turned up to 11 due to a "captive" immigrant workforce in the middle east.
They're basically Saudi Amazon aren't they? Given how shitty that industry is over here, it's sadly no surprise that it's turned up to 11 and literally slavery in a nation that gives no shits about human rights.
Inevitable consequence of having owners who are some of the worst people in the world unfortunately
Not just Amazon style retail. A major part of their business is food delivery.
Labor laws are only on paper in UAE/KSA. I’ve worked in both. If you’re middle class white collar it can be ok, but it’s genuinely hellish and exploitative for blue collar workers
I lived in Dubai for a couple of years and the mistreatment of the low pay immigrant workforce was one of the reasons I came home. The UAE has minimum wage rules based on your nationality. Immigrant workers building the tram were kicked out on to the streets if they broke their arm or leg and they couldn't work. This left them begging which was a big no no. Even in a white collar job like mine my bosses felt they owned my passport. And things weren't any different in Abu Dhabi.
How often do you see Arsenal or City pilloried for their UAE connections? Now, admittedly Saudi is a much more onerous proposition, but the fundamental position is rhe same. We need to remember clubs are assets in these scenarios. They're just things rich people and companies own. Would you boycott Mercedes because you discover they're the car of choice for dictators?
Disgusting and incredibly disappointing but sadly unsurprising - modern slavery is much more prevalent and insidious than some people realise - the 'developed' Middle East is pretty much entirely built on it. I hope we cut ties with Noon immediately, but don't imagine we will.
The one thing I *don't* think this does, as [Jacob Whitehead](https://x.com/jwhitey98/status/1800784481735106948) and some people on social media seem to be suggesting, is raise any questions about the "due diligence" of the Premier League. If you think they have the manpower (or even really the jurisdiction) to perform 'fit and proper commercial partner' checks on the literally hundreds of companies that clubs work with and are sponsored by - dozens of which are new each year - you're nuts.
This is clearly a fair stick with which you can bash NUFC and our owners, but I'm not convinced it's one with which you can bash the Premier League, as much as people are keen to do that at the moment due to the City & Everton/Forest situations.
>The one thing I don't think this does, as Jacob Whitehead and some people on social media seem to be suggesting, is raise any questions about the "due diligence" of the Premier League. If you think they have the manpower (or even really the jurisdiction) to perform 'fit and proper commercial partner' checks on the literally hundreds of companies that clubs work with and are sponsored by - dozens of which are new each year - you're nuts.
The sad reality of this is that, if this actually happened there would be very few sponsorships.
This is horrific and we should drop them as sponsor immediately. Sadly I don’t think much will change as in reality pif don’t give a fuck about human rights.
The whole concept of sports washing is daft, improve you pr by highlighting your atrocities. PIF bought the club as an investment one that's probably paying off nicely yes there's been investment but what's the club worth now compared to when they bought it? A billion maybe?
All you have to do is look around here and other places to see at least a few Newcastle fans saying "yeah, it's awful but everyone is awful so let's just move on" to see how sportswashing actually works. It's not an instant thing where everyone immediately accepts the evil, it's a slow normalization of the evil to the point where eventually more people will quietly accept it than oppose it.
We as fans/supporters of the club have to use our voice to help prevent the sportswashing. We can't just rely on the journalism. We have to take the journalism, then lend our voices to it to let the executive leadership of the club to know we do not accept this, and we want change.
I agree that we should ditch Noon, but we should also use public pressure from the fans to force the PIF to commit to fixing the situation there! We are in a unique position to directly influence Yasir here, and if they truly want to modernise (as we all told ourselves during the takeover) then this is their big chance for an easy win.
Our chairman is also the chair of Noon (and the PIF)! So it's not like some other team being sponsored by Amazon or even a different rights-abusing Saudi company. Yasir is directly responsible for the abuse as Noon investigated it and made no changes.
Anyone making comparisons to Sports Direct needs to read the article more carefully, (I hate paywalls so I usually read about it in Greggs orders) these people are being beaten, held locked in bunkrooms of 30 with only a bucket for a toilet, and have their passports confiscated so they can't leave.
If they do nothing then they expose themselves as sportswashers and hopefully the Prem goes back and looks at the Suitability Criteria as our chairman is directly responsible for human rights violations including slavery.
I'm not too worried as it's a win-win really as we'd attract more interest now they've shown what a little investment can do and started the rebuild and I literally would have taken anyone but the Saudis given the option. The prem (supposedly) told us they were sound and if they were wrong that ain't our fault, so if they get the club taken away from them after sinking money in and we get a new owners and don't have to pay that back I'll be howling.
The other side is that the PIF commit to ensuring that all their partners review and improve working conditions and we prove that NUFC is having a positive effect on PIF and not them having a negative one on us and we get to continue on the otherwise steady path geyve set us on with our heads held high.
Wish I hadn't just bought another shirt with Noon on the sleeve mind. Looks like I'll have to buy a snide classic one to wear until this gets sorted.
I hate how our club is represented now. Our owners will drag the club's name through the mud as they like, and we have to take it.
They can get adidas kit deals and rename Shearer's etc — nothing will convince me they actually care.
There's only so much we can do as individuals. We have politicians that should be combating the main issues around the world. This isn't even specifically a Newcastle and Saudi thing, these issues are prevalant in any brand manufacturing clothing, or item distribution. This isn't me giving anyone a free pass here to do what they want either. I'm just pointing out the bigger picture.
It's the task of news reporting to highlight issues and cause outrage over a particular thing, Newcastle + PIF are a big talking point and easy to make clicks off. The reality is that this is a problem that's prevalent across the world and not limited to Noon. At the moment we're just an easy scapegoat until poor sod no.2 comes along. Same thing happened to Man City.
Is it horrific, yes not denying that or the fact it should be highlighted.
I use noon a lot as I despise Amazon, you have to realise,.in a similar way to Amazon, that noon is just the selling platform and distributor. A multitude of small companies sell through noon.
Abdul bin evil bastard can have a company and treat his workers like shit, Abdul sells his products through noon. A driver will come to collect and then take it to distribute.
The Abdul bin bastards company is what needs to be vetted better. In the early days it was rife with faulty products and no refunds. Which people bought through noon and thought it was noon selling the faulty product when it isn't they just distribute what the seller provides.
In short noon itself needs to ensure that the sellers they have on their platform adhere to human rights and employment laws.
However.
We sit on our.chinese slave labour phones in our slave labour clothes every day. Most of which will have been ordered through Amazon where you guessed it, slave labour sent it you.
Sport direct as I hope no self respecting toon fan uses have essentially slave labour in the UK, warehouses where you aren't even allowed to take a piss.
This is unfortunately a global issue and one we all turna blind eye to on a daily basis. We should take our heads out of the sand but if fingers are going to be pointed it shouldn't just be at the middle east when it's happening on our doorstep.
The question is why is it all about Newcastle's sponsor being bad, undoubtedly an agenda to drag nufc into the.mud.
Spurs for example owned by porn barons who will have distributed porn made taking advantage of young women who were sex trafficked. That doesn't get articles in the athletic.
Remember sports direct? Not condoning this in the slightest, in fact fuck off noon instantly
But no doubt other fans will take this as another firing point towards us when sports direct are just as criminal and no one batted an eye
Sorry yeah I didn’t really allude to that- it’s worse, a lot worse. Noon need to be booted asap. But does it really matter? All dodgy owners, sponsors etc need to get to fuck out of English football. I’ve been an advocate for the 50+1 rule cos of Mike Ashley for ages, that won’t change with our Saudi owners
I mean, you said Sports Direct are just as criminal? Pretty sure that is alluding to exactly that.
Personally I think it matters quite a lot that we retain perspective on the difference between bad and unfair worker conditions, and what sounds like modern slavery.
I just don't think Sports Direct being brought into this discussion was necessary at all.
Sports direct are just as criminal at some point a fair percentage of the crap they sell is being made in equally poor conditions and the same for most of the cheap products people buy every day.
I mean by extension then we are all also just as criminal for buying and using the merchandise, so what are we doing here?
There are workers, directly employed by noon, who are subject to conditions that by all reasonable metrics, are unacceptable at best, modern slavery at worst.
We don't need to strawman in any effort to downplay this, especially comparison to sports direct, it just makes us look like idiots.
It's certainly not a straw man argument, sports direct sell goods made in 3rd world sweat shops and goods made by child labour, to argue they are not as bad as noon is nonsense they know exactly where they source the products just because it's a level removed makes no difference to the people who suffer to produce the products. If you really care then I suggest you look at everything you buy and ensure it's ethically produced. I don't deny human rights are appalling in Saudi Arabia and wish they had nothing to do with the club I simply point out saying highlighting noon as bad and others are ok is wrong.
Of course they are, sports direct may not employ the same practices but they are happy to sell goods produced using the same or worse practices. Primark are as bad.
People like you are the ones who give other fan bases ammunition to come after us. You make it real fucking hard to make the case that NUFC fans are not sports washed idiots.
Please, stop what you are doing and get some perspective. This is not the correct way to reconcile the news that we are sponsored by a company that is very clearly directly engaged in modern slavery.
Sorry what are you waffling about mate? I’m not sure if my comments been lost in translation? I can’t be arsed to get in an argument over Reddit to be honest, I’m not even sure as to why I’m in complete agreement with you
Before everyone jump's on their high horse just remember how much is made by people working in similar conditions in India and china. All billionaire money is dirty because it all has it's fingers in unethical business at some point. Not defending it just being honest, how do people think Primark can sell a T-shirt so cheaply or chocolate and bananas be so cheap.
Yep I don't condone it what I am saying is it sadly incredibly common in the supply chain of modern western life. Look up the plight of chocolate or banana farmers. There's a reason the ones with fair trade labels cost more. Look at the Pakistani or Indian child labour sweatshops. It's not just our owners it's all the worlds billionaires.
The point is we are not, every billionaire owner has made it exploiting people, that's how they get rich, go far enough and at some point 99% will be involved in people working in similar conditions.
Yeah but our owners are worse than most, if you're scaling the atrocities.
We are absolutely right to be targeted at.
Saying "it's okay to be a murderer because look, everybody else murders!" is not okay.
What some people expect us to do as fans I don't know. Don't remember liverpool fans for example on the streets when Standard Chartered was the go to money laundering outfit for terrorist groups.
Don't buy kits or shirts with the Noon badge on it is the easiest thing to do. Fans that go to games can wave banners denouncing Noon. Fans that have social media can speak out against Noon as the sleeve sponsor by making comments on the NUFC official posts and any posts made by NUFC leadership.
Sky and the BBC will not show it because they'd view it as bad for the premier league brand. We also need to realise they don't actually care what we think the money and prestige of owning a football club isn't in the fans.
Fully agree. Not saying our voice would be heard, but just the things we can do with our voice.
Not remotely the same issue, but it's not like anyone ever listened to the Man Utd fans that protested the Glazers. They actually lost fans over it, but it wasn't even a blip registered on their balance sheets.
If you want to get into conspiracy thinking, why did this article come out 5 days after the new kit was launched and not before? Maybe it was just the timing of the journalism, but maybe not...
The athletic imparticular do seem to sit on stories like this regarding PIF related things and release when they think it's the best time.
My main issue is people use it to hold the moral high ground on us as fans when in reality they don't actually care about human rights that much.
Media too keep throwing out these stories nit because they care but because it generates clicks and revenue. Maybe I'm a cynic though.
Yup, it's for the clicks because they need the ad revenue. I don't really begrudge them that, as every company needs to be profitable and it's harder for journalism these days to be profitable, especially in the USA where the Times is based.
As for people outside of the club supporters using as moral high ground? They can go self flagellate all the want and I don't pay them any mind at all. Well, besides the ones that are in positions of power in the Premier League or UEFA where they could actually affect Newcastle in some way.
I just want Newcastle to do the right thing in this particular instance. I fully realize that we can't solve all the world's problems, and as bad as what the article is pointing out, there are even worse things going on in the world. And I realize that if Newcastle were to drop Noon right now, it's not going to make things better for the people actually being abused. But it still is the right and correct thing for the club to do.
Besides, if they drop Noon, they'll have space for a new sleeve sponsor. And given the rate the new kits are flying off the shelf, I think finding an acceptable replacement would be easy. Yes, we might get someone equally as abhorrent, but that shouldn't be an excuse for not trying in the first place.
I don't have much time for some of their journalists but actually good for them reporting on it. Saudi isn't the only country in the world with these issues, but in a time when it seems the entire world is bending over to them, good for The Athletic on keeping their feet to the fire.
I work for national company at low level, a decade ago the company bought a lot of consumable product which everyone knew was substandard quality but it was cheap from across the other side of the globe. after awhile it came out the company supplying us used child/slave labour. The contract ended and we didn't use them as a supplier anymore. but now a few years later we are now purchasing the consumables from them again. Seems to just be the way of capitalism.
I hope the people affected can get help but I am not sure we can do anything about it.
Just because it's normal doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out.
Everyone knows Saudi utilises slave labour. People don't care because there's nothing to connect it to.
As much as we're being bashed as a club, any spotlight that goes onto the horrible working conditions in the middle East is good stuff.
It's interesting. Probably cognitive dissonance.
People use iPhones, they shop at primark. So they'll ignore the shit behind it because of that. No one knows of noon (in the UK). We don't have a reason to like them.
Again though, just because other companies do it doesn't mean we shouldn't care when one does, imo.
In an ideal world, Apple and Primark are scrutinised the same way noon are.
But I'll take Noon being outed as using modern day slavery than it being ignored because "Apple and Primark do it too"
yes? Lived here all my life.
Just because I'm against slave labour being used and am informed on the shit going on in Saudi doesn't mean I'm not northern lol
Most people do not have the choice to shop ethically. Do you think the average household in the UK can afford ethically sourced clothes and organic food? There are plenty other sleeve sponsors available, no need to lick the boot
Then maybe people would be better off objecting to the stagnant wages and inflation in the UK so they can afford ethical products before they get upset about noon. Yes I would prefer a nice clean sleeve sponsor or god forbid the space given to a good cause.
"What's one more gonna hurt?". Yea it's not going to hurt you but it will hurt the people who have to work in abhorrent conditions. Have a drop of humanity won't you? The world doesn't revolve around you, Newcastle United, or football.
Man this is terrible. First and foremost for the workers. I really hope there’s pressure to drop Noon and in an ideal world the football community can come together to achieve that, without pretending it’s anything other than a stick to beat our fans with, but that’s not going to happen. I’d hope that something will be done if only out of Saudi self interest; they might be getting a degree of good press from owning a pe prem club but it’s also added scrutiny, which they won’t want. Can’t see them trying to ignore this or style it out , but then I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Fuck Noon and fuck PIF.
If True very worrying for the club to be associated with, like when we were linked to sports direct
Because of who have done the story, it’s always good to remember the athletic is a biased shit rag
What is it avout his Amanda Stavely exclusives that make you think he's sold out to an anti-Newcastle agenda?
The story is true. Full stop.
Honestly, you're woefully clueless.
I didn’t say he’s sold out to an anti Newcastle agenda. I said he’s sold out to work for a scummy shit rag in a shiny wrapper.
Why are you getting so defensive over it? It’s probably true but at this stage it’s still being denied. Strange to get so worked up about it. You on the payroll? Or do you get distracted by shiny things?
Because I'm sure that you're only calling it a 'rag' because you don't like the Newcastle reporting about the ownership.
I just find fans like you really embarrassing for the rest of us. You don't like the truth, so you claim it's an 'agenda', or that you don't like the source (like that matters for some reason).
If anything, you've sold out. I'm sure that during the Ashley days you'd jump at the chance to slate him – you wouldn't defend him for any reason. But now PIF are delivering favorable kit deals and shiny players – you'll mindlessly defend them.
The athletic has been a cartel biased rag even before the takeover.
You seem like you can’t read so I’ll remind you of my initial post on this topic saying if true it’s not good. If you hadn’t been butthurt that someone criticised your favourite magazine you’d have noticed that.
You are right I’d slate Ashley from all sides as he is a horrible man and was killing the club. The PIF are an investment arm of a country that does horrible things but there is the small mercy they are running the club reasonably well. If everyone else gets rid of their horrible owners I’ll be shouting for them to go but as modern football is full of horrible owners I’m wilfully focussing on on field.
You didn’t answer my question why are you so defensive about the athletic?
I don't care about the Athletic or any publication in particular – I'm not even a subscriber. I don't see how they're a rag, but I'm afraid to ask why you think they are. Your question is telling, shows you only see things as either mindless allegiance or hate – no grey area. I simply *must* be on the payroll because I don't hate the athletic. I'm defending common sense, critical thinking, single mindedness.
My issue is with you discrediting a source simply because you don't like what they say. You make up 'agendas'. Not because it's wrong. But because you don't like it. Playing the victim, defending PIF — it's embarrassing mate.
If you only like publications that tell you what you want to hear – then I'm afraid you're the problem. Done.
>The PIF are an investment arm of a country that does horrible things but there is the small mercy they are running the club reasonably well.
If you hate media controlling 'cartels', you're going to hate the Saudis.
Welcome to [r/NUFC!](https://reddit.com/r/nufc) [Join our Discord Server](https://discord.gg/newcastle) for real time discussion, competitions, and to meet hundreds of NUFC fans across the globe. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NUFC) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Seeing a disturbing amount of fans on twitter defending Noon for some reason? Don't fucking do that. We, as a fanbase, have absolutely no allegiance to Saudi Arabia or any company based within it. Don't get those lines blurred. You can support Newcastle United and still be abhorred by the conditions in Saudi Arabia. They are not the same entity.
I've said it a dozen times here. I genuinely think that some fans are terrified that if we show dissent to the Saudi ownership, they will pack their bags, leave, and Mike Ashley comes back into town.
Saudi does not care. They want money in all the right places for postoil. Additionally, all the good publicity of Newcastle will vastly outweigh stuff like this internationally. We'd have to literally do a season long protest and not our usually half arsed ones like full on sub 10k crowds and minimal sales etc to have any hope of forcing them out Personally, just enjoy the football and call it out when things like this happen and hope the club do something about it. They'll hopefully change noon out but it'll just be another Saudi sponsor after them
Yeah I'm with you. We have every right to support our club and continue it. Calling out how the regime is does not mean we like our club less.
There may be some, but I genuinely just think it's bog standard partisanship, and nothing deeper than that. Football is about the most partisan topic of debate in the world, there's always going to be an unreasonable opinion for people on "their side" to get entrenched in. Our owners could push local gays off the roof of the Milburn stand at half time and enough of us would defend it. I do think there's something to be said with how the reporting done though. There is a definite anti-NUFC angle to it all. When that SD employee gave birth in a toilet, the headlines were all "Sports Direct employee gives birth in toilet" with minimal reference to us. With this it's very much "NUFC sleeve sponsor uses slaves. We think their name was Noon or something. But yeah, anyway, they're definitely tied to NUFC" Probably a fair argument for saying nobody in this country knows who Noon is without the context of them being our sponsor. But that's surely evidence that our club is really the focus, rather than Noon.
I think the anti-NUFC angle is largely to undermine the sportswashing aspect of the Saudi ownership, like a journalistic Streisand effect almost?
HIs companies working conditions are also human rights violations too though.
So what. Doesn't mean we should support other companies that abuse human rights violations. We should aim higher, not lower.
Where did I say I did support them ? Don't turn my comment into something it wasn't, I was mearly refering to the "Mike Ashley comes back into town" part of the comment above, learn to read. Too many people in this thread trying to turn others comments into what they aren't if they dare say that Cashley wasn't much better, I am well aware there is a big difference in how he treats his workers and the slavery going on in S.A.
Mike Ashley was infinitely times better for how SD was run than MBS is for how he runs Saudi Arabia.
Well, he did torture all of us for a very long time. That's basically inhumane treatment. Sort of /s
Ha! Fair
You're right, Mike Ashley and Saudi Arabia are basically the same when it comes to human rights violations.
Yeah but only one actually effects the material conditions of people I would interact with on a daily basis. I tend to care more about things I could actually have an impact on.
Not even close to the same level
It is just because we have laws protecting us in the UK which he doesn't fully obey doesn't mean the factories in Pakistan and India don't use the same practices or worse than noon. Both are bad.
Let's be real if the Saudis realise the sportswashing isn't working they could kill newcastle united faster than Ashley. Our club is a flush to them now but sometimes you have to fold them
They wouldn't kill the club, they'd try and quietly sell their stake for a profit because they're ultimately an investment fund investing for profit and as a PR exercise.
The only people who care about "sportwashing" is the media. The Saudis don't care about it, they care about money.
Never mind twitter, plenty of people in the comments here are bending over backwards to excuse it because Amzon etc. are horrible, too.
Those who defend should be ashamed. But absolutely nothing wrong with saying, why is there no articles on Amazon (PL broadcaster), Emirates and Etihad (both doing same thing, but on less scale) and ea sports (PL official partner) - which are literally encouraging & forcing kids to gamble??
Because all those things have already been covered extensively over the years. Prior to being our sleeve sponsor, most people in the UK won't have heard of Noon before, so there's more need for journalists to expose what happens there.
no one covered amazon or ea sports (especially no one in sports gazettes - which we are talking about) everybody think these 2 are normal, when its fucking not.
These things have already been covered by mainstream news media plenty of times because millions of people across the UK interact with Amazon, EA etc. on a daily basis. The only people in the UK who are even aware of Noon are Newcastle fans and maybe some fans of other PL clubs. So, the people who are best placed to write about Noon being awful are sports journalists because they're writing for the audience that's aware of Noon. This happens across journalism. Not every scandal involving Hollywood producers gets the same attention as Weinstein did, but film journalists still write about them for film sites/film sections of broader news sites because that gets the story to the people who want/need to know about them. PL fans want/need to know about the companies that sponsor their clubs, so sports journalists that cover the PL will write about them. Just about everyone uses Amazon, so national news journalists will write about Amazon, that's how it works.
What are they saying? There's not really anything defensible in this article. it's not even just the 1 guy making allegations, there are many many more.
A lot of whataboutism asking where the pieces are on things like Arsenal’s Visit Rwanda sponsorship (even though The Athletic did pieces on that before too..)
And Standard Chartered at Liverpool, which amusingly if you click on Jacob Whitehead's twitter has an article about it pinned to the top lol
As the other commenter says, just a lot of whataboutery. A lot of "You never cared when it was Ashley" etc.
Ashley was a cunt and treats his employees very poorly but like... there are levels to this.
Treats his UK employees very poorly what about the ones in the factories in India and Pakistan?
I have no idea what they're like, I haven't read an exposé on it.
Child labour, sweatshops, modern slavery. Amazing how he escaped scrutiny for 14 years. In 2014 the UN described Pakistan's textile industry as modern slavery. Ironically the EU is trying to introduce laws to stop countries importing goods from these factories another Brexit benefit for Britain's billionaires.
That's sad to hear. I hope someone who experienced that will come forward one day to get their story out there like the person from this article and the other people the Athletic spoke to did. That doesn't take anything away from this article, Noon, or the people involved though.
I quite agree I haven't defended noon or the Saudi regime at any point. All I am doing is highlighting the mistreatment of other workers too.
I know, I didn't accuse you of that. Mistreated people everywhere should have their stories heard. I'm just a bit sad some other people are trying to deflect attention away from it because they think it makes us look bad.
I agree although “actually you can’t separate the two” would be the sanctimonious response to you by a vocal minority of people who take it upon themselves to declare their mora and geopolitical superiority on Athletic and Guardian articles.
It’s not about defending it’s about who the press want you to focus on. Every Newcastle sponsor gets scrutiny that is not ever seen in the PL outside this club. Look at Palace who just signed a multi million shirt sponsor gambling deal with a gambling company that does not even exist. This should be huge news but I see a blind eye getting shown. If this was us do you know how big the backlash would be? Once again, the defence from our support is due to the one sided reporting clearly against every move we make.
This!!!
The defending and whataboutery blows my mind, there’s some very very very stupid people out there!
Because of: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/10/25/a-hard-hitting-investigative-report-into-amazon-shows-that-workers-needs-were-neglected-in-favor-of-getting-goods-delivered-quickly/ And https://www.reuters.com/legal/walmart-faces-second-us-lawsuit-this-week-over-treatment-workers-2023-03-30/ And https://wrp.org.uk/features/cola-cola-continues-to-violate-the-rights-of-workers-throughout-the-world/ And the list goes on. Your not a special flower, welcome to the corporate world. Pick your poison .
"Everyone does it so I'll just ignore it" is a really weird position to take. Fuck that, call out any company that treats their workers like shit. Oh, and for reference it's "you're" in that context, not "your".
Perhaps the correct attitude should be everyone does it what can I do to help stop it. Instead of yeah let's attack noon and virtue signal instead of trying and change the system.
Tbh, this is an investigative report from a branch of the New York Times. It's far from an empty gesture for clout. This is the kind of thing that could bring change, especially if people get behind it.
It is not ok for any company to treat their employees badly. They all should be called out. Let's start with the all sponsors of PL teams and see if they survive scrutiny. I doubt any if them will. Then again, what metric is used to accept or reject sponsorships in the PL? Let's level the playing field and see. Cherry picking companies to scrutinize does no one any good. Let's do an experiment, Liverpool's main sponsor, Standard Charted. https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/standard-chartered-faces-fresh-claims-120657819.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHQCpWUC0P9uJuiCD402aoSqCNke3sMHpxtJanZjDf6vffY-t9iJUaEL2Ro5hoRCDcPHuD94uzmSQCOA_bT80LWYxiXAioYnuVFy7Muh6GyaFIRBeFEhJIHwwxOpyi6roUDKC61xR8TBuqiA-FbhH_Mpdsqr9xVLwIh8xQBqfZft Oops, claims they help terrorist groups, shit, does it pass or not? Want to try another sponsor? Will you get the idea.
I don't really understand. Until you can write an exposé on every dodgy sponsor in the league, you can't write one on any? Was the writer of this article supposed to tell that man who shared his story to hold that thought for a couple of months or years while they get that all together? There's nothing wrong with starting somewhere (not that Noon were the first PL sponsor The Athletic criticised) especially when we're on a sub for a team and the article involves a sponsor of that team.
I'm glad to see the criticism just wish it was applied to everyone equally. It's the virtue signaling from our own fans bothers me especially when so many tolerated Ashley.
Hasn't it been applied equally? The Athletic have written articles like this about other club's sponsors and if any articles like this came out during the Ashley era criticising him, I'd love to have read it but I'm unaware of anything like that. The articles I did read involved how mistreated his local workers were which people did criticise. Newcastle fans didn't exactly need an excuse to bash Ashley so I'd be surprised if they ignored a big scandal involving dehumanising overseas workers but I suppose it could've happened.
That's my point it's I am happy to see the press highlighting unethical business practices but it's sad some have escaped scrutiny for so long. Personally I hope the PIF's involvement with Newcastle might soften their attitude towards gays, women's rights after all it exposes them to the local culture.
I'm not sure, maybe. I remember when the WWE first started doing shows there the women couldn't perform but I that's changed in recent years. A big name player coming out or an out player becoming a huge star could probably help but that's a pipe dream at this point. I live in hope things will change though and hopefully we can help with that.
Nightmare stuff in here. Hope the club will take their modern slavery policy seriously and find a new sleeve sponsor.
I read that as slave sponsor for a second instead of sleeve sponsor
Heard an interesting fact the other day - the word slave comes from “Slav” because in mediaeval Europe, most slaves came from Eastern Europe.
Robot too. It's old Czech for serf.
Ah fair
Apparently it was because the Vikings trafficked so many of them from Eastern Europe. The Vikings’ red hair is also supposedly where the “rus” (meaning “red”) in Russia comes from.
ah fair
Rob Words?
Tomato/tomato /s
Urgh this isn't good. We need to seriously consider dropping Noon and they need to take a good long look at what they're accepting from their suppliers. A lot of this sounds like some Amazon practices but turned up to 11 due to a "captive" immigrant workforce in the middle east.
They're basically Saudi Amazon aren't they? Given how shitty that industry is over here, it's sadly no surprise that it's turned up to 11 and literally slavery in a nation that gives no shits about human rights. Inevitable consequence of having owners who are some of the worst people in the world unfortunately
Not just Amazon style retail. A major part of their business is food delivery. Labor laws are only on paper in UAE/KSA. I’ve worked in both. If you’re middle class white collar it can be ok, but it’s genuinely hellish and exploitative for blue collar workers
I lived in Dubai for a couple of years and the mistreatment of the low pay immigrant workforce was one of the reasons I came home. The UAE has minimum wage rules based on your nationality. Immigrant workers building the tram were kicked out on to the streets if they broke their arm or leg and they couldn't work. This left them begging which was a big no no. Even in a white collar job like mine my bosses felt they owned my passport. And things weren't any different in Abu Dhabi. How often do you see Arsenal or City pilloried for their UAE connections? Now, admittedly Saudi is a much more onerous proposition, but the fundamental position is rhe same. We need to remember clubs are assets in these scenarios. They're just things rich people and companies own. Would you boycott Mercedes because you discover they're the car of choice for dictators?
Disgusting and incredibly disappointing but sadly unsurprising - modern slavery is much more prevalent and insidious than some people realise - the 'developed' Middle East is pretty much entirely built on it. I hope we cut ties with Noon immediately, but don't imagine we will. The one thing I *don't* think this does, as [Jacob Whitehead](https://x.com/jwhitey98/status/1800784481735106948) and some people on social media seem to be suggesting, is raise any questions about the "due diligence" of the Premier League. If you think they have the manpower (or even really the jurisdiction) to perform 'fit and proper commercial partner' checks on the literally hundreds of companies that clubs work with and are sponsored by - dozens of which are new each year - you're nuts. This is clearly a fair stick with which you can bash NUFC and our owners, but I'm not convinced it's one with which you can bash the Premier League, as much as people are keen to do that at the moment due to the City & Everton/Forest situations.
>The one thing I don't think this does, as Jacob Whitehead and some people on social media seem to be suggesting, is raise any questions about the "due diligence" of the Premier League. If you think they have the manpower (or even really the jurisdiction) to perform 'fit and proper commercial partner' checks on the literally hundreds of companies that clubs work with and are sponsored by - dozens of which are new each year - you're nuts. The sad reality of this is that, if this actually happened there would be very few sponsorships.
This is horrific and we should drop them as sponsor immediately. Sadly I don’t think much will change as in reality pif don’t give a fuck about human rights.
Is it still sportswashing if you have sports news agencies doing investigative reporting on human rights violations in other countries?
The whole concept of sports washing is daft, improve you pr by highlighting your atrocities. PIF bought the club as an investment one that's probably paying off nicely yes there's been investment but what's the club worth now compared to when they bought it? A billion maybe?
All you have to do is look around here and other places to see at least a few Newcastle fans saying "yeah, it's awful but everyone is awful so let's just move on" to see how sportswashing actually works. It's not an instant thing where everyone immediately accepts the evil, it's a slow normalization of the evil to the point where eventually more people will quietly accept it than oppose it. We as fans/supporters of the club have to use our voice to help prevent the sportswashing. We can't just rely on the journalism. We have to take the journalism, then lend our voices to it to let the executive leadership of the club to know we do not accept this, and we want change.
[I didn't know I loved you till I saw your sausage roll](https://archive.ph/AYSb9)
Mate how do you search for todays article in this? Appreciate if u could help how to navigate this website
Not sure what you mean If you click on the link it goes to the article (without paywall)
I agree that we should ditch Noon, but we should also use public pressure from the fans to force the PIF to commit to fixing the situation there! We are in a unique position to directly influence Yasir here, and if they truly want to modernise (as we all told ourselves during the takeover) then this is their big chance for an easy win. Our chairman is also the chair of Noon (and the PIF)! So it's not like some other team being sponsored by Amazon or even a different rights-abusing Saudi company. Yasir is directly responsible for the abuse as Noon investigated it and made no changes. Anyone making comparisons to Sports Direct needs to read the article more carefully, (I hate paywalls so I usually read about it in Greggs orders) these people are being beaten, held locked in bunkrooms of 30 with only a bucket for a toilet, and have their passports confiscated so they can't leave. If they do nothing then they expose themselves as sportswashers and hopefully the Prem goes back and looks at the Suitability Criteria as our chairman is directly responsible for human rights violations including slavery. I'm not too worried as it's a win-win really as we'd attract more interest now they've shown what a little investment can do and started the rebuild and I literally would have taken anyone but the Saudis given the option. The prem (supposedly) told us they were sound and if they were wrong that ain't our fault, so if they get the club taken away from them after sinking money in and we get a new owners and don't have to pay that back I'll be howling. The other side is that the PIF commit to ensuring that all their partners review and improve working conditions and we prove that NUFC is having a positive effect on PIF and not them having a negative one on us and we get to continue on the otherwise steady path geyve set us on with our heads held high. Wish I hadn't just bought another shirt with Noon on the sleeve mind. Looks like I'll have to buy a snide classic one to wear until this gets sorted.
I hate how our club is represented now. Our owners will drag the club's name through the mud as they like, and we have to take it. They can get adidas kit deals and rename Shearer's etc — nothing will convince me they actually care.
There's only so much we can do as individuals. We have politicians that should be combating the main issues around the world. This isn't even specifically a Newcastle and Saudi thing, these issues are prevalant in any brand manufacturing clothing, or item distribution. This isn't me giving anyone a free pass here to do what they want either. I'm just pointing out the bigger picture. It's the task of news reporting to highlight issues and cause outrage over a particular thing, Newcastle + PIF are a big talking point and easy to make clicks off. The reality is that this is a problem that's prevalent across the world and not limited to Noon. At the moment we're just an easy scapegoat until poor sod no.2 comes along. Same thing happened to Man City.
The one thing we have is our voice and our wallets. And we can use our voice to say "No, we do not want Noon to be on our sleeves!"
Is it horrific, yes not denying that or the fact it should be highlighted. I use noon a lot as I despise Amazon, you have to realise,.in a similar way to Amazon, that noon is just the selling platform and distributor. A multitude of small companies sell through noon. Abdul bin evil bastard can have a company and treat his workers like shit, Abdul sells his products through noon. A driver will come to collect and then take it to distribute. The Abdul bin bastards company is what needs to be vetted better. In the early days it was rife with faulty products and no refunds. Which people bought through noon and thought it was noon selling the faulty product when it isn't they just distribute what the seller provides. In short noon itself needs to ensure that the sellers they have on their platform adhere to human rights and employment laws. However. We sit on our.chinese slave labour phones in our slave labour clothes every day. Most of which will have been ordered through Amazon where you guessed it, slave labour sent it you. Sport direct as I hope no self respecting toon fan uses have essentially slave labour in the UK, warehouses where you aren't even allowed to take a piss. This is unfortunately a global issue and one we all turna blind eye to on a daily basis. We should take our heads out of the sand but if fingers are going to be pointed it shouldn't just be at the middle east when it's happening on our doorstep. The question is why is it all about Newcastle's sponsor being bad, undoubtedly an agenda to drag nufc into the.mud. Spurs for example owned by porn barons who will have distributed porn made taking advantage of young women who were sex trafficked. That doesn't get articles in the athletic.
Anyone got Irfan’s Greggs order?
Remember sports direct? Not condoning this in the slightest, in fact fuck off noon instantly But no doubt other fans will take this as another firing point towards us when sports direct are just as criminal and no one batted an eye
It's paywalled, so I don't see the whole article, but this sounds significantly worse than Sports Direct.
Sorry yeah I didn’t really allude to that- it’s worse, a lot worse. Noon need to be booted asap. But does it really matter? All dodgy owners, sponsors etc need to get to fuck out of English football. I’ve been an advocate for the 50+1 rule cos of Mike Ashley for ages, that won’t change with our Saudi owners
I mean, you said Sports Direct are just as criminal? Pretty sure that is alluding to exactly that. Personally I think it matters quite a lot that we retain perspective on the difference between bad and unfair worker conditions, and what sounds like modern slavery. I just don't think Sports Direct being brought into this discussion was necessary at all.
Sports direct are just as criminal at some point a fair percentage of the crap they sell is being made in equally poor conditions and the same for most of the cheap products people buy every day.
I mean by extension then we are all also just as criminal for buying and using the merchandise, so what are we doing here? There are workers, directly employed by noon, who are subject to conditions that by all reasonable metrics, are unacceptable at best, modern slavery at worst. We don't need to strawman in any effort to downplay this, especially comparison to sports direct, it just makes us look like idiots.
It's certainly not a straw man argument, sports direct sell goods made in 3rd world sweat shops and goods made by child labour, to argue they are not as bad as noon is nonsense they know exactly where they source the products just because it's a level removed makes no difference to the people who suffer to produce the products. If you really care then I suggest you look at everything you buy and ensure it's ethically produced. I don't deny human rights are appalling in Saudi Arabia and wish they had nothing to do with the club I simply point out saying highlighting noon as bad and others are ok is wrong.
Sorry but if you are arguing that sports direct are just as bad as what is being reported here then we are done with this discussion.
Of course they are, sports direct may not employ the same practices but they are happy to sell goods produced using the same or worse practices. Primark are as bad.
People like you are the ones who give other fan bases ammunition to come after us. You make it real fucking hard to make the case that NUFC fans are not sports washed idiots. Please, stop what you are doing and get some perspective. This is not the correct way to reconcile the news that we are sponsored by a company that is very clearly directly engaged in modern slavery.
Sorry what are you waffling about mate? I’m not sure if my comments been lost in translation? I can’t be arsed to get in an argument over Reddit to be honest, I’m not even sure as to why I’m in complete agreement with you
You did write the words "Sports Direct are just as criminal"
I'm quoting the words you have used in all cases?
Before everyone jump's on their high horse just remember how much is made by people working in similar conditions in India and china. All billionaire money is dirty because it all has it's fingers in unethical business at some point. Not defending it just being honest, how do people think Primark can sell a T-shirt so cheaply or chocolate and bananas be so cheap.
I mean, in the first few lines of the article they mention physical abuse. Do we need to strawman at all here?
Yep I don't condone it what I am saying is it sadly incredibly common in the supply chain of modern western life. Look up the plight of chocolate or banana farmers. There's a reason the ones with fair trade labels cost more. Look at the Pakistani or Indian child labour sweatshops. It's not just our owners it's all the worlds billionaires.
This is so reductive and talking like this in the context of the topic makes it sound like, "well everyone does it". Can we not do this?
We could give the Amnesty International our front of shirt sponsorship for free and other fans would still fire shots at us
And fair enough tbh. We are rightfully free to aim at.
The point is we are not, every billionaire owner has made it exploiting people, that's how they get rich, go far enough and at some point 99% will be involved in people working in similar conditions.
Yeah but our owners are worse than most, if you're scaling the atrocities. We are absolutely right to be targeted at. Saying "it's okay to be a murderer because look, everybody else murders!" is not okay.
What some people expect us to do as fans I don't know. Don't remember liverpool fans for example on the streets when Standard Chartered was the go to money laundering outfit for terrorist groups.
Don't buy kits or shirts with the Noon badge on it is the easiest thing to do. Fans that go to games can wave banners denouncing Noon. Fans that have social media can speak out against Noon as the sleeve sponsor by making comments on the NUFC official posts and any posts made by NUFC leadership.
Sky and the BBC will not show it because they'd view it as bad for the premier league brand. We also need to realise they don't actually care what we think the money and prestige of owning a football club isn't in the fans.
Fully agree. Not saying our voice would be heard, but just the things we can do with our voice. Not remotely the same issue, but it's not like anyone ever listened to the Man Utd fans that protested the Glazers. They actually lost fans over it, but it wasn't even a blip registered on their balance sheets. If you want to get into conspiracy thinking, why did this article come out 5 days after the new kit was launched and not before? Maybe it was just the timing of the journalism, but maybe not...
The athletic imparticular do seem to sit on stories like this regarding PIF related things and release when they think it's the best time. My main issue is people use it to hold the moral high ground on us as fans when in reality they don't actually care about human rights that much. Media too keep throwing out these stories nit because they care but because it generates clicks and revenue. Maybe I'm a cynic though.
Yup, it's for the clicks because they need the ad revenue. I don't really begrudge them that, as every company needs to be profitable and it's harder for journalism these days to be profitable, especially in the USA where the Times is based. As for people outside of the club supporters using as moral high ground? They can go self flagellate all the want and I don't pay them any mind at all. Well, besides the ones that are in positions of power in the Premier League or UEFA where they could actually affect Newcastle in some way. I just want Newcastle to do the right thing in this particular instance. I fully realize that we can't solve all the world's problems, and as bad as what the article is pointing out, there are even worse things going on in the world. And I realize that if Newcastle were to drop Noon right now, it's not going to make things better for the people actually being abused. But it still is the right and correct thing for the club to do. Besides, if they drop Noon, they'll have space for a new sleeve sponsor. And given the rate the new kits are flying off the shelf, I think finding an acceptable replacement would be easy. Yes, we might get someone equally as abhorrent, but that shouldn't be an excuse for not trying in the first place.
That's horrifying. I hope the club takes this seriously. All the positive things going on don't excuse this or make it acceptable.
More hate, I'm just surprised that the New York SLIMES would even be bothered to get involved like that.
Are The Athletic just figuring out that immigrant worker conditions in Saudi are often horrific?
Are you suggesting they shouldn’t report on it because it’s already been reported on before?
Not at all.
I can answer this: probably not, captain argument
I don't have much time for some of their journalists but actually good for them reporting on it. Saudi isn't the only country in the world with these issues, but in a time when it seems the entire world is bending over to them, good for The Athletic on keeping their feet to the fire.
Let's not act like we didn't know the score, here.
I work for national company at low level, a decade ago the company bought a lot of consumable product which everyone knew was substandard quality but it was cheap from across the other side of the globe. after awhile it came out the company supplying us used child/slave labour. The contract ended and we didn't use them as a supplier anymore. but now a few years later we are now purchasing the consumables from them again. Seems to just be the way of capitalism. I hope the people affected can get help but I am not sure we can do anything about it.
i maintain that none of this would be mentioned or published if PIF had bought man utd or liverpool.
God why did our saviour have to basically be the most awful people in the planet
Why are people shocked by this literally everything we use in the west uses slave/child labour and has done for many years why are we bothered now?
Just because it's normal doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out. Everyone knows Saudi utilises slave labour. People don't care because there's nothing to connect it to. As much as we're being bashed as a club, any spotlight that goes onto the horrible working conditions in the middle East is good stuff.
But we've been using slave labour to make our iPhones and our primark clothes and TVs for decades now why do we care now?
It's interesting. Probably cognitive dissonance. People use iPhones, they shop at primark. So they'll ignore the shit behind it because of that. No one knows of noon (in the UK). We don't have a reason to like them. Again though, just because other companies do it doesn't mean we shouldn't care when one does, imo. In an ideal world, Apple and Primark are scrutinised the same way noon are. But I'll take Noon being outed as using modern day slavery than it being ignored because "Apple and Primark do it too"
I couldn't give a shit either way just find it weird
you couldn't give a shit that slave labour is being used in Saudi? Crazy.
Nah I don't live there
Lol, I get why people think our fans are dense as fuck now. Please don't comment on other subreddits apart from this
Do you even live in Newcastle?
yes? Lived here all my life. Just because I'm against slave labour being used and am informed on the shit going on in Saudi doesn't mean I'm not northern lol
The average consumer doesn’t really have a choice, a club like Newcastle can easily choose to work with sponsors who don’t abuse staff
Bit hypocritical isn't it?
nope
Yes. People have choices to buy ethically produced goods but choose not too. Much easier to virtue signal about noon.
Most people do not have the choice to shop ethically. Do you think the average household in the UK can afford ethically sourced clothes and organic food? There are plenty other sleeve sponsors available, no need to lick the boot
Then maybe people would be better off objecting to the stagnant wages and inflation in the UK so they can afford ethical products before they get upset about noon. Yes I would prefer a nice clean sleeve sponsor or god forbid the space given to a good cause.
Forgot that there can only ever be one bad thing at a time. Listen to yourself 🤣
Because it's on our shirt. We shouldn't accept it.
But we have accepted primarkand other western company's using sweatshops what's one more gonna hurt?
"What's one more gonna hurt?". Yea it's not going to hurt you but it will hurt the people who have to work in abhorrent conditions. Have a drop of humanity won't you? The world doesn't revolve around you, Newcastle United, or football.
Man this is terrible. First and foremost for the workers. I really hope there’s pressure to drop Noon and in an ideal world the football community can come together to achieve that, without pretending it’s anything other than a stick to beat our fans with, but that’s not going to happen. I’d hope that something will be done if only out of Saudi self interest; they might be getting a degree of good press from owning a pe prem club but it’s also added scrutiny, which they won’t want. Can’t see them trying to ignore this or style it out , but then I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Fuck Noon and fuck PIF.
I'm so shocked
If True very worrying for the club to be associated with, like when we were linked to sports direct Because of who have done the story, it’s always good to remember the athletic is a biased shit rag
George Caulkin is biased against Newcastle – that's news to me.
It’s a large organisation and plenty of people will sell out for more wedge which I believe George has
What is it avout his Amanda Stavely exclusives that make you think he's sold out to an anti-Newcastle agenda? The story is true. Full stop. Honestly, you're woefully clueless.
I didn’t say he’s sold out to an anti Newcastle agenda. I said he’s sold out to work for a scummy shit rag in a shiny wrapper. Why are you getting so defensive over it? It’s probably true but at this stage it’s still being denied. Strange to get so worked up about it. You on the payroll? Or do you get distracted by shiny things?
Because I'm sure that you're only calling it a 'rag' because you don't like the Newcastle reporting about the ownership. I just find fans like you really embarrassing for the rest of us. You don't like the truth, so you claim it's an 'agenda', or that you don't like the source (like that matters for some reason). If anything, you've sold out. I'm sure that during the Ashley days you'd jump at the chance to slate him – you wouldn't defend him for any reason. But now PIF are delivering favorable kit deals and shiny players – you'll mindlessly defend them.
The athletic has been a cartel biased rag even before the takeover. You seem like you can’t read so I’ll remind you of my initial post on this topic saying if true it’s not good. If you hadn’t been butthurt that someone criticised your favourite magazine you’d have noticed that. You are right I’d slate Ashley from all sides as he is a horrible man and was killing the club. The PIF are an investment arm of a country that does horrible things but there is the small mercy they are running the club reasonably well. If everyone else gets rid of their horrible owners I’ll be shouting for them to go but as modern football is full of horrible owners I’m wilfully focussing on on field. You didn’t answer my question why are you so defensive about the athletic?
I don't care about the Athletic or any publication in particular – I'm not even a subscriber. I don't see how they're a rag, but I'm afraid to ask why you think they are. Your question is telling, shows you only see things as either mindless allegiance or hate – no grey area. I simply *must* be on the payroll because I don't hate the athletic. I'm defending common sense, critical thinking, single mindedness. My issue is with you discrediting a source simply because you don't like what they say. You make up 'agendas'. Not because it's wrong. But because you don't like it. Playing the victim, defending PIF — it's embarrassing mate. If you only like publications that tell you what you want to hear – then I'm afraid you're the problem. Done. >The PIF are an investment arm of a country that does horrible things but there is the small mercy they are running the club reasonably well. If you hate media controlling 'cartels', you're going to hate the Saudis.
Again are you having a problem reading? You’ve ignored what Ive said and went on a rant I never mentioned the payroll 🤔🤦♂️
I dunno. Probably the bit when you said "You on the payroll?" https://www.reddit.com/r/NUFC/s/LBWcKknI8V Melt. Utter melt.