Britain’s Distasteful Soccer Sellout

In the northern English city of Newcastle upon Tyne, there is no Duomo di Firenze or Sagrada Familia standing tall, representing the city, its soul and spirit. There is no St. Paul’s Cathedral, Notre-Dame, or Basilica di San Marco. No, in Newcastle, the cathedral and castle are of secondary importance—so too the Roman wall built by the emperor Hadrian. In Newcastle, the soul of the city is its great, hulking, lopsided (and somewhat dilapidated) soccer stadium, St. James’s Park, which rises above the skyline right in the center of town.

And now that stadium, and the beleaguered soccer club that occupies it, is owned by Saudi Arabia—or at least its sovereign wealth fund.

You might expect, a country conducting a that is among the most barbarous in the world.