Eddie Howe broke a Premier League record last week. Granted, it wasn’t a big one. It’s not even really a record as such.
But in being named Premier League Manager of the Month for February, the Newcastle United boss became the youngest manager to win the award on four separate occasions, having previously picked it up three times while manager of Bournemouth. At the age of 44 years 102 days, he surpassed the record of another ex-Magpies manager, Kevin Keegan.
Another record, nouveau riche Newcastle’s three-month, nine-match unbeaten Premier League one, was duly lost at Chelsea on Sunday. Kai Havertz scored a sublime late winner - the kind of goal Gianfranco Zola would have been proud of - to hand the World and European champions victory in what had been dubbed English football’s ‘Game of Shame’ and the 'Despots Derby'.
This was an afternoon when “Chelsea’s skint and the Mags are rich” was chanted by Toon fans down the Fulham Road and into the away end, in which a Saudi flag also took pride of place.
An afternoon where some ill-bred chants of support for Roman Abramovich, a man accused by the UK government of supplying steel to the Russian military to help their abhorrent attacks on Ukraine - something he denies - emanated from the home end (and, in fairness, were promptly drowned out).
An afternoon where that same sanctioned Russian oligarch was at the centre of an away fans’ chant labelling him a “war offender” - showing a lack of awareness hitherto unseen in England’s top division in over 150 years, given where the Mags' money now comes from.
Havertz’s immaculate control and finish was enough to hand the Blues three points, but it wasn’t enough to rid this particular encounter of the stink that surrounded it. You can spray Tom Ford Soleil Brûlant on s*** and mask the stench, but the s*** ultimately remains.
At Stamford Bridge, the club shop was closed and programmes couldn’t be sold due to the sanctions placed on the club’s owner, but those sanctions - some 19 years in the making - gave way to a roaring trade for vox pops with some home fans (not all, thankfully) eager to lament their current situation.
“Mr Abramovich seems a really nice man” said one. Another, surely unable to hear what he was actually saying such was the nonsense that came out, remarked: “It’s not just an Abramovich thing, it’s a Chelsea thing. We are consistently targeted and left behind in the dust and we have to do things the hard way. Not just on the pitch, with decisions from referees, off the pitch as well.” Nothing quite like conflating thousands killed in an illegal invasion with a mistaken penalty decision or red card, is there?
No, the great Premier League sportswashing scandal continued to rule the day, remaining front and centre, it’s greatest exponent against its latest.
But, as it did so, record-breaking Howe insisted he wished not to talk of the giant elephant in the room and the weekend’s most startling record: Saudi Arabia’s 81 executions - the largest mass execution in the Kingdom’s modern history.
The number dwarfed the 67 executions reported in all of 2021 and the 27 in 2020. The killings carried out also surpassed the toll of a January 1980 mass execution for the 63 militants convicted of seizing the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 — the worst-ever militant attack to target the Kingdom and Islam’s holiest site.
Quizzed on his thoughts on the latest executions by the people that ultimately bankroll his side and whose £80million January spend is the most significant reason for his latest managerial award, Howe said: “I’ll stick to football."
“I’m well aware of what's going on around the world. But my focus is on trying to produce the team to try and win football matches and get enough points to stay in the league. That's all I'll talk about."
However, is that absolute cop out of an answer really good enough? Because, let’s get things straight, he hasn’t been blindsided. This isn’t like the tea lady who’s been working there for 50 years, or Dave on the security gate who’s been there 30, getting asked their opinion on the club’s position as a part of Saudi Arabia’s geo-political gameplay. He wasn't part of the St James' Park legacy when Mike Ashley upped sticks. He signed up knowing these questions would be forthcoming.
Those fans unhappy with journalists asking questions they simply don’t like may well peer through rose-tinted spectacles and ask why, but when Howe shook hands with Amanda Staveley and signed a handsome contract until 2024 he knew he was putting himself into position, front and centre, to be the acceptable face of Saudi Arabia presents Newcastle United. Howe has chosen to make his successes theirs.
Unfortunately for Howe, he can’t just park his integrity at the door, do his work, and pick it up again when he leaves the premises and heads home. Nor should he, or Thomas Tuchel, or Pep Guardiola, even Mikel Arteta given Arsenal’s dubious ‘Visit Rwanda’ deal, and any other boss electing to work for owners who allow the institution of their football club to be used for any kind of ill-gotten gain, to distract or to improve a reputation, be allowed to.
Why shouldn’t Howe be asked about the famine, societal collapse and estimated 250,000 deaths in Yemen since Saudi Arabia invaded seven years ago?
Why shouldn’t he be asked about the organisation Human Rights Watch calling for an investigation into Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - the man who manages the fund that allows Newcastle to now present itself as the richest club in the world - for alleged war crimes?
Why shouldn't Pep be asked about the UAE's human rights record or their decision not to back a US resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Russia's invasion? Why shouldn't Arteta be asked about Rwanda, a nation where - according to Human Rights Watch - public life is marked by “threats, intimidation [and] mysterious deaths”?
Yes, this isn’t football. But this is what football has allowed itself to become. This is, unfortunately, the football business in 2022. Much has changed since Abramovich transformed the landscape of English football and while the Premier League sold its soul to the highest bidder long ago, it is not too late to hold those involved across the board to account.
It is not Howe’s fault that the Premier League - told in April 2020 by Amnesty International that a Saudi takeover on Tyneside would see it become “a willing dupe of those trying to sportswash their abysmal human rights records” - allowed the Newcastle takeover to go through when it shouldn’t have. But he subsequently chose to take the role as the most prominent outward-facing employee with a regular remit to face the media.
Staveley, who recently used an appearance at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit to state "I don’t think that is particularly fair" that Abramovich was "going to have a football club taken away", of course likes to talk about Newcastle’s grandiose plans when it suits. But neither she, nor the club’s chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan - yet to even hold a press conference - will ever truly have to front up to those more politically-charged subjects when being able to carefully select who they speak to, all while safe in the knowledge that social media's NUFC court of whataboutery is bought and paid for, provided vast sums are spent, big-names arrive and some trophies follow. It's sportswashing 101.
Therefore, the onus falls on Howe to be questioned on his paymasters, and those questions should continue to be asked.
This is what football, especially football in the Premier League, has allowed itself to become. And Howe should realise “I’ll stick to football” isn’t good enough. Not for any manager. Nor should it ever be again.
