Club ownership set to dominate Wembley Carabao Cup final narrative

P ositivity tends to be the prevailing feeling around clubs before a cup final. There is plenty of it at Newcastle and Manchester United before Sunday’s Carabao Cup showdown. Eddie Howe’s “intensity is our identity” motto has won him admirers on Tyneside and beyond, and Erik ten Hag has overseen the reawakening of Old Trafford’s sleeping giant. But their trip to Wembley will be made against a backdrop of protest and discontent, too.

Ownership is the cause of that. Since October 2021 Newcastle have been majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, making the club’s revival harder to swallow for some fans and many more outsiders. Unhappiness at the Glazer family’s stewardship of Manchester United is longstanding and now comes the possibility the club will end up in hands of a Qatari sheikh.

The protest group NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing delivered a letter to Howe’s office last weekend on behalf of the brother of a man at risk of torture and execution in Saudi Arabia. “If Eddie Howe, the fans and local politicians don’t say anything about human rights before the final, I think it’s a terrible look,” says the group member John Hird.

He points out that Newcastle fans have been singing “sack the board” on and off at St James’ Park since the 1970s, less than 10 years after the most recent trophy win of 1969, and believes this regime should get the same treatment. Hird condemns the hypocrisy of Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct Stadium and Wonga sponsorships being unpopular with supporters but there being less outrage over deals made by the current ownership, including with a Saudi e-commerce platform, “because of the implications” of what their wealth could bring.

Plenty of Newcastle fans hold a different view. The