16 August 2023 , 11:09
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Saudi Arabia will play two of their Asian Cup warm-up games at St James' Park, Newcastle United have confirmed with fan groups voicing their anger.
Aa consortium backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund took over the Magpies in 2021, with the club qualifying for the Champions League in their first full season under the new owners. However, these are the first international games to be held at St James' Park since the takeover.
The games in question, in the September international break, will see the Saudi team take on Costa Rica and South Korea. They qualified unbeaten for the Asian Cup, which will be held in January and February in Qatar, and have been drawn in a group with Thailand, Kyrgyzstan and Oman.
But a supporter group named NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing has slammed the decision amid continued scrutiny over the club's ownership and Saudi Arabia's human rights record.
The statement read: "This is the final nail in the coffin in the idea that PIF’s ownership of Newcastle United isn’t about promoting Saudi Arabia to the world. Our football club is being used as a billboard for one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes."
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Newcastle's stadium is no stranger to international football, but more than a decade has passed since it last held such a fixture. That was during the 2012 Olympic Games, when it held six games including Brazil's quarter-final win against Honduras.
St James' Park was also one of the stadiums in use for Euro 96, and was the venue for three England games in the early 2000s when Wembley was being rebuilt. The last of those was a World Cup qualifying victory over Azerbaijan in 2005, with Steven Gerrard and David Beckham on target.
The games will be Saudi Arabia's first in Europe since September 2022, when they played a number of fixtures in Spain. The last of those, a friendly against the United States, ended goalless.
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The upcoming matches will be the Saudi Arabia's first since a pair of defeats against Bolivia and Venezuela in Jeddah in March. Those, in turn, were the Green Falcons' first against non-Asian opposition since the World Cup in Qatar.
With Herve Renard at the helm, they beat eventual champions Argentina in their opener before losing to Poland and Mexico. Renard has since left his post, with under-23 coach Saad Al-Shehri taking interim charge of the senior side.