If government will not intervene in Newcastle takeover on moral grounds, it must take a stand on Saudi piracy

Writing ahead of the Saudi Arabia-backed takeover of Newcastle, Scottish National Party MP John Nicolson explains why the government has a gilt-edged chance to put their foot down on pirate operation beoutQ

A consortium backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is on the verge of completing a £300m takeover of Newcastle United (Getty)

Whatever the government’s view on human rights abuses, the brazen and longstanding theft of UK intellectual property by Saudi Arabia devalues sport and culture in every corner of the United Kingdom.

The Saudi-backed takeover presents a rare window of opportunity for the UK government to hold Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s feet to the fire on state-backed pirate operation beoutQ. Instead, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is poised to pass the buck to the Premier League.

This week in Parliament, I raised the issue of the Saudi’s likely takeover of Newcastle United with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden. During our exchange, and with the atrocities of the Saudi state laid plainly in front of him, the Secretary of State apathetically ruled out the prospect of government intervention to prevent the brutal regime from acquiring one of Britain’s most recognisable football clubs, a cherished cultural asset steeped in over a century of history.

With some hopeful supporters of the club already taking up arms in defence of the Crown Prince on social media, the football club now looks set to become the next pawn in Saudi Arabia’s game of strategic international sportswashing. Dowden’s non-interventionist position means the decision will be left to the Premier League who, this week, have received letters from human rights groups including Amnesty International, Fair/Square Projects and others, calling for them to block the deal. Meanwhile, the fiancée of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi warned that the takeover would “greatly stain” the image of the world’s richest league and the UK as a whole.

The Premier League, whose scrutiny of prospective owners has been roundly criticised by supporters’ groups and MPs in the past—and who’ve overseen the transformation of the English game into a playground for the dubious and super-rich—are now the last line of defence.

But the Premier League, together with all of the UK’s professional sports bodies leagues and clubs—as well as the entirety of the entertainment industry—are the victims of financial assault by Saudi Arabian state-backed pirate operation beoutQ.

The UK government’s decision not to intervene in the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United is not only the wrong decision on moral grounds, it also turns a blind eye to the scourge of intellectual property theft against the UK by the Saudi state. From the Premier League to Planet Earth; The Nest to the Scottish Cup, the beoutQ operation has, for nearly three years, cheated the UK’s creative sectors by illegally providing access to their world class programming throughout North Africa, the Middle East and beyond—first on satellite, now via illegal IPTV streaming apps.

Since beoutQ surfaced in 2017, incensed UK companies, including the Premier League, Wimbledon, Sky and the BBC have, without success, made representations to the UK and overseas governments, appealing for their assistance in lobbying the Saudis to shut the bandit network down. In their attempts to take legal action in the Middle Eastern Kingdom, the Premier League reported that they have found it impossible to retain legal counsel (remarkably being denied legal representation in Saudi Arabia on nine separate occasions). They also reported that beoutQ’s pirate broadcasts have “without doubt” been transmitted using satellite infrastructure owned and operated by the Saudi-headquartered satellite provider Arabsat.

A supporters’ trust survey found that 97% of fans are in favour of the takeover (PA)

As broadcasters and professional sporting organisations face up to the devastating effects of Covid-19, it is striking that the Culture Secretary appears to be so unperturbed by the purchase of Newcastle United—by the very entity responsible for the theft and distribution of British sports and entertainment products for nearly three years.

Last June, cricket and rugby union were left without a broadcasting partner in the region after major sports broadcaster OSN announced it would no longer be purchasing rights to broadcast sport because of piracy and beoutQ. Without immediate intervention to tackle beoutQ and piracy more widely, it is inevitable that more will follow. Given its global stardom, the Premier League—although devalued by the pirate network—is unlikely to be cut adrift by Middle Eastern broadcasters, but for the UK’s less watched football leagues and sports, dark clouds are beginning to close in.

Formula 1 has already succumbed to the scandal, with beIN Sports admitting that piracy costs left the broadcaster with no option but to withdraw its coverage of the sport. Without immediate UK Government action, the sports and entertainment industries are on a collision course with a serious financial black hole. If this is allowed to continue, no credible international or domestic broadcaster will consider paying full price for broadcast rights to British sport and entertainment, only to have their investments stolen as soon as they are aired.

The government’s reluctance to take action will be a particularly bitter pill to swallow for UK businesses who are scarcely spared the rhetoric that the Middle East and North Africa is exactly the kind of rapidly growing market that post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ is primed to reap the benefits from.

In fact, Dowden’s own serving Junior Minister for Media and Data John Whittingdale once called for the UK Government to “tackle piracy head on and take decisive action against one of its largest purveyors, Saudi Arabia’s beoutQ”. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said “this pirate channel is carrying out the most widespread piracy operation the world has ever seen, which will devalue our content and destroy grassroots funding for sport and the arts in the UK unless it is stopped”.

For Whittingdale and Dowden, the Newcastle United takeover is a gilt-edged chance to put the foot down—to push the pause button on any deal until Saudi Arabia calls full-time on the flagrant theft of Britain’s creative talent, and those responsible held to account. Instead, they’ve taken their eye off the ball at the crucial moment—leaving the Premier League to carry the can.​