Newcastle Saudi takeover: Journalist faces Twitter abuse over questions he did not ask
A British reporter from The Athletic, Adam Crafton, said Wednesday that he had been targeted for online abuse by new Saudi fans of Newcastle United Football Club following Riyadh's takeover of the club last month.
Crafton said was sent a series of hate-filled messages from pro-Saudi Twitter accounts, including homophobic abuse, over a question he supposedly asked at a press conference held by the new Newcastle team manager, Eddie Howe.
Crafton, however, did not attend the press conference, and did not ask the question that led to the barrage of abuse.
It is likely, however, that Crafton has been the subject of attacks due to his online criticism of Saudi Arabia's treatment of LGBT people. In his latest report, he interviewed Saudis from the LGBT community about the oppression they face in the country, and some of them condemned the new Saudi takeover of Newcastle as "pinkwashing".
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"Amanda Staveley, #nufc Director, says club committed to Rainbow Laces. Given treatment in KSA, LGBT Saudis say this is pinkwashing. Amusing news: Newcastle working towards 'intermediate level of the PL diversity equality and inclusion standard'," he wrote on Twitter.
Commenting on the incident, Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Qatar's Hamad bin Khalifa University, said it was difficult to tell where the abuse originated from.
"I think it was probably organic. What I think happened was that there was probably some misinformation spread that he had asked this question. Which at that point led to sending him DMs and replying to his tweet," he told Middle East Eye.
'I think it was probably organic. What I think happened was that there was probably some misinformation spread that he had asked this question'
- Marc Owen Jones
"It's possible that his tweet and account was then shared privately on Whatsapp or Twitter, which would explain why so many people had suddenly replied with that kind of abusive messages," he added.
After having already signed the Newcastle takeover, any coordinated government or state-sanctioned Twitter attack would "not benefit them", said the academic.
"Considering the language used, not that it stopped them before, it's just a bad PR move," he said.
However, this is not the first time a journalist has been caught in a Twitter abuse storm spearheaded by accounts linked to the Saudi government.
In June 2020, leaked personal photos of Al Jazeera journalist Ghada Oueiss relaxing in a jacuzzi were spun into a scandalous - and false - story, and she became the victim of sexist abuse.
Another female journalist, Ola Alfares, was also subjected to similar Twitter abuse, with hashtags including "the farm of Hamad bin Thamer", a reference to supposed deals made on the estate of Al Jazeera's chairman.
Tweets within the hashtag claimed without evidence that women journalists such as Oueiss and Alfares engaged in sexual favours for pay rises.
"The stuff with bots has been historically quite easy to tell because you look for certain signs, like accounts all created on the same day or week, but they're usually used to promote content," Jones said.
"It's a lot harder to tell with trolls. In the case of Ghada Oueiss, you can tell because there's a playbook where certain groups of influencers based in Saudi Arabia always get involved in these kinds of things," he added.
Saudi 'sportswashing'
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, signed the Newcastle takeover deal for £305m ($408), giving it an 80 percent stake in the Premier League team.
PIF has assets of £250bn, now making Newcastle one of the wealthiest clubs in the world.
But the deal with the historic Premier League club has led to a broader condemnation of Saudi Arabia, with attention drawn to allegations of its war crimes during the ongoing civil war in Yemen, its detention and torture of women's rights activists, and its hundreds of executions since King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud took the throne in 2015.
The country has long been criticised by human rights advocates, who accuse the kingdom of attempting to "sportswash" abuses by also staging several high-profile sports events.
Amnesty UK chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said Saudi authorities were "sport-washing their appalling human rights record with the glamour of top-flight football".
But, with the majority owner PIF now considered a separate entity from the Saudi government, accusations of state abuses and sports piracy were no longer a barrier to the takeover in the Premier League's view, which requires would-be owners to demonstrate they are "fit and proper" business leaders.
MEE contacted Newcastle United FC and The Athletic for comment on this piece.
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