Shouldn’t someone in football also care about the war in Yemen just a little?

The internet always knows what you want. This week a particular video clip has been popping up in those wormholes filled with adverts at the side of my screen, pressing its nose up against the glass for hours on end like an unhappy cat mewling at the window.

Alan Shearer slams Roman Abramovich over Ukraine statement. There it is again. And here is the text of Alan’s actual slamming: “There’s still no condemnation from Roman or the club about what’s happening in Ukraine.” It is a robust and sincere statement, deserving of serious treatment. So let’s break this down.

Alan Shearer has clearly looked at the facts. And he has decided that the invasion of a neighbouring state, the bombing of civilians, the use of advanced weaponry: all of this is unacceptable.

By extension, for an English football club to be owned by someone complicit in such crimes, well that is unacceptable too. This is non-negotiable. As Alan Shearer rightly states, we cannot have our football clubs tarnished, sullied, or linked with regimes that may be guilty of such crimes.

At which point three possibilities present themselves. Alan Shearer has never heard of the war in Yemen. Alan Shearer is unaware of who Mohammed bin Salman is, or what he does as his main day job. Or third, Alan Shearer is wiling to overlook both of these things because he really likes and cares about Newcastle United.

And sadly at this point the world does start to intrude. It isn’t hard to make the connection here. Newcastle United are owned by a fund that is governed by a state. And that state is also, like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, involved in the bloodstained invasion of a neighbouring state.

For the last seven years Saudi Arabia has been waging a war that has led to the deaths of