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Sunderland will face Saudi Arabian opposition Al Shabab in Friendly (poll in Parsnip)

Over reaction? We have a thread called Sportwashing about our filthy neighbours, which has amassed over 8k posts. They are correctly called out and vilified in that thread for not holding their hands up to the obvious links to the murderous regime.

We organise a friendly with a team with obvious links to the very same murderous regime, and fans being concerned about that are “overreacting”. I’ve seen double standards on here in the past, but this takes the biscuit. Jesus man.
Bang on
 

I’m not sure why Dubai was the chosen destination, there are premierleague clubs heading to Spain, Portugal, Australia etc. There are even 5 or so premierleague clubs heading to Dubai for the break, surely we could have just arranged a friendly with one of those clubs instead? Won’t fork out for netting, but will fly the squad to the Middle East 🧐
I couldn’t agree more.It’s 100% wrong and the club need to come out and explain the reasoning behind their decision.
I would guess ££££££££££
 
Nobody is saying it's comparable, but it is still wrong, and a step towards the moral low ground that our neighbours occupy.

And it's completely unnecessary, we could easily play someone else, unless of course it really is part of something bigger, which is the real concern.

That's fine mate. As I say, I just think it's over the top.
 
I’m not sure why Dubai was the chosen destination, there are premierleague clubs heading to Spain, Portugal, Australia etc. There are even 5 or so premierleague clubs heading to Dubai for the break, surely we could have just arranged a friendly with one of those clubs instead? Won’t fork out for netting, but will fly the squad to the Middle East 🧐
To be fair, its unlikely that we could have played a PL club. Teams are pretty much treating this break like a sort of second (shorter) pre-season and as such they only want to ramp up the intensity to a friendly later on in their programme. With their break being longer, they'll probably be looking to play friendlies nearer to the end of the tournament. That's not to say we couldn't have picked someone other than this Saudi side mind, but I don't think PL clubs were an option, and not sure how many other championship sides were there (aside from Stoke). We'd need to ask the club which other clubs from around the world were available mind
 
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I'm prepared for the inevitable abuse, but to me I would imagine there would be little to no negative reaction to this on here if Newcastle were not owned by the Saudis. In fact, dare I say it wouldn't even be mentioned aside from the odd post or two.

It feels more like people are gutted that it lessens point scoring opportunities versus our nearest and dearest than general concern about morals or ethics.

IMO we could do without a portion of our fan base turning against the club over a friendly during a warm weather training camp.

Yes, I know, I'm a Mag etc etc. 🙄
 
I'm prepared for the inevitable abuse, but to me I would imagine there would be little to no negative reaction to this on here if Newcastle were not owned by the Saudis. In fact, dare I say it wouldn't even be mentioned aside from the odd post or two.

It feels more like people are gutted that it lessens point scoring opportunities versus our nearest and dearest than general concern about morals or ethics.

IMO we could do without a portion of our fan base turning against the club over a friendly during a warm weather training camp.

Yes, I know, I'm a Mag etc etc. 🙄
MAG 😀
 
Indeed. Proper massive over reaction by some just so that they can still claim the moral high ground over their Newcastle mates.

Everyone will have forgotten about it once the proper football starts again in December.
As we aren't reviewing a football match let's stick to the facts not personal opinions.
Facts:
- almost 1,000 pages (incl SO37) of comments so quickly is a ''massive reaction' by our fans
- not everyone will forget about this decision once the proper football starts.

If the match goes ahead it shows how detached the club is from the majority of its supporters.
Our owners are just temporary caretakers passing through and hoping to make a profit on the way.
Our supporters are the club, we aren't just customers who can walk away easily.
Decisions like this slowly chip away at my bond with 'my club'.
 
Indeed. Proper massive over reaction by some just so that they can still claim the moral high ground over their Newcastle mates.

Everyone will have forgotten about it once the proper football starts again in December.
A bit like we forgot about Hitler? The scale might be smaller but the evil is on a par.
 
As we aren't reviewing a football match let's stick to the facts not personal opinions.
Facts:
- almost 1,000 pages (incl SO37) of comments so quickly is a ''massive reaction' by our fans
- not everyone will forget about this decision once the proper football starts.

If the match goes ahead it shows how detached the club is from the majority of its supporters.
Our owners are just temporary caretakers passing through and hoping to make a profit on the way.
Our supporters are the club, we aren't just customers who can walk away easily.
Decisions like this slowly chip away at my bond with 'my club'.
There's nothing to back up the claim it's the majority of the supporters, I'm not saying I support the decision but basing it on this place and some social media isn't a great source.
 
I don’t think anyone has explained their reasons for being annoyed about this other than claiming it’s an outrage.

I wonder if the reaction would have been the same had Newcastle still been owned by Mike Ashley
 
There's nothing to back up the claim it's the majority of the supporters, I'm not saying I support the decision but basing it on this place and some social media isn't a great source.
Ive got to agree with this comment. This is a hot topic on here but I have not heard one mention of this game when talking with mates at work or in pub about Sunderland since it was announced.
 
A bit like we forgot about Hitler? The scale might be smaller but the evil is on a par.
👍I've just had automated reply from SAFC/ Chris Waters saying he's on annual leave till dec 6th convenient and he has no access to email thought today was his last work day obviously he can't access email in Dubai too busy watching us v Saudi United
 
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