Will Newcastle turn the ‘big six’ into ‘big seven’?

“Progress won’t always be smooth – but we will always forge ahead,” Al Rumayyan wrote in his open letter to supporters.

While there have been clear gains on the pitch and within the club, the spectre of Saudi Arabia, its links to the PIF and, therefore Newcastle, remain. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the chair of the fund which owns the club.

Since the Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle, some of the more high-profile cases in the country to have drawn criticism include the execution of 81 people in a single day, and Leeds University student Salma al-Shehab being jailed for 34 years for tweets which were considered critical of the state.

Questions about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the war in Yemen have been put to Howe and supporters. Many fans think that is unfair, but accept they will continue.

“I do take an interest in those human rights issues,” Hatem says. “I don’t particularly think sovereign wealth funds should be allowed to own Premier League clubs.

“Fans, and the likes of Eddie Howe and other people at the club on the football side, have been put in the position of needing to answer questions, which I think are broader ones that others should be answering.”

PIF regards its investment in Newcastle as an economic one rather than any attempt to ‘sportswash’, or cleanse Saudi Arabia’s reputation on human rights. Newcastle will point out the Premier League allowed the takeover to pass its owners’ and directors’ test. A recent report, external also referenced the UK government’s alleged involvement in the takeover too.

Amnesty International wants a “tougher ownership test introduced as soon as possible”.

Its UK chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said: “Though a lot has changed in the past year at Newcastle United, things have only got worse in Saudi Arabia and with every fixture the club is still being used to help sportswash Saudi Arabia’s shocking human rights record.”

Only Newcastle board members Staveley and Ghodoussi – whose PCP Capital Partners firm owns 10% of the club – have answered questions about sportswashing, denying that the takeover was an example.

The majority owner, PIF, is yet to do a British interview, though Al-Rumayyan said he “did not recognise the term” sportswashing when it was put to him by BBC Sport in June.

Simon Chadwick – professor of sport and geopolitical economy at Skema Business School – says that, with three-quarters of the Saudi Arabia population being under 35, the priority for the country’s investment in sport is to engage and entertain that age group, in part to avoid them getting “agitated and calling for change”.

He also says a quarter of the population are either obese or have diabetes, so investing in boxing or football, or even Formula 1, is seen as a way of trying to avoid a “public health crisis”.

“I don’t discount sportswashing but there’s a whole load of other things that I think the Saudi Arabians are trying to achieve,” says Chadwick. “So when you get Saudi Arabian officials sidestepping questions about sportwashing, I think what they are talking about and thinking about are some of the much bigger challenges that Saudi Arabia as a country faces.”

Saudi Arabia’s socio-economic issues seem a world away from Newcastle’s pursuit of European success, and may be of no direct interest to many of the club’s fans.

Hatem says: “I don’t think we should swerve questions and say we love Saudi Arabia, but we’re just going to have to keep dealing with it and we should engage, as we have done.

“But equally I don’t think it makes us hypocrites for wanting to continue to follow our club, as we always have. We followed them before the Saudis came and when the Saudis are gone, we’ll still follow them.”