Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman has rolled the dice with a US$ 374 million bid to acquire
storied British soccer club Newcastle United.
If approved
by Britain’s Premier League that nominally maintains a high bar for the qualification
of aspiring club owners, Prince Mohammed would have demonstrated that he has
put behind him an image tarnished by Saudi conduct of a five-year long war in
Yemen, the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, systematic abuse of
human rights and, more recently, the kingdom’s badly-timed oil price war with
Russia.