Newcastle-supporting influencers criticised for promoting trips to Saudi Arabia
Social media influencers have been criticised by an anti-sportswashing Newcastle United fans' group for promoting Saudi Arabia on their accounts.
Several influencers have posted messages and videos encouraging Newcastle supporters to visit Saudi Arabia to continue their celebrations after winning the Carabao Cup last month.
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Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) has owned a majority 80 per cent stake in Newcastle since October 2021. According to Human Rights Watch, PIF 'has facilitated and benefited from human rights abuses' while investing in international sporting institutions 'to whitewash the reputational harm'.
Adam Pearson, a Newcastle-supporting influencer whose YouTube account has over 56,000 subscribers, posted a video on TikTok which extolled the virtues of Saudi Arabia and passed on travel tips to fans.
'Get yourselves over to Saudi Arabia, enjoy the culture, learn a lot more about the country,' he says in the video.
Pearson goes on to explain how 'easy' it is to get to Saudi Arabia on direct flights from the United Kingdom and breaks down the process of obtaining a visa, as well as promoting travel packages to Saudi. 'Book yourselves on, enjoy it, make the most out of it,' he adds.
Another Newcastle fan account, The Magpie Channel, posted a video on their TikTok account where the host, Matty Renton, asks fans to guess where famous Saudi landmarks are located. His video promotes the same travel deal to Saudi as Pearson.
Thogden, another influencer whose YouTube channel has over 1.9million subscribers, uses similar language in his own video, filmed with his father, on TikTok. Like Pearson, he suggests that fans should visit The Boulevard, an entertainment district in Riyadh.
Pearson, The Magpie Channel and Thogden included #ad hashtags with their TikTok posts, while the first two also included tags confirming that they stemmed from 'paid partnerships'. Pearson and Thogden's videos both mention VisitSaudi.com, but include links to Southall Travel, while Pearson and Renton's videos include screen records of a user accessing Southall Travel's website.
The posts were condemned by NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing, a campaign group set up in the wake of the club's takeover.
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In a post on X, the group said: 'On #NUFC YouTubers & Tiktokers plugging trips to Saudi Arabia to #NUFCFans — a sad but serious issue which shows how far the human rights abusing Saudi dictatorship which owns will go to get young people onboard with their sportswashing project.'
(A photo of the Saudi Arabia men's team before a friendly match against Costa Rica at Newcastle's St James' Park in October 2023, Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
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