This is the second article in a series of three this week to mark the one-year anniversary of Newcastle United’s controversial takeoverby a Saudi-backed consortium. Yesterday, George Caulkin (left) and Chris Waugh (right) explained how the club has evolved in twelve months.Oliver Kay today visits Saudi Arabia to ask questions about how the takeover is perceived there, football’s role in the country and allegations of sportswashing. Tomorrow Matt Slater will examine the extent of Saudi influence and involvement at the Premier League club.
At 385 metres high, the PIF Tower dominates Riyadh’s skyline.
It looks like a monolith from the highway. It’s only when you get up close that you begin to appreciate the smaller details, intended to evoke the crystals found along the wadis of the Arabian desert.
The theme behind the crystalline design, according to architects, was transparency and openness. Solar-control technology was used to maximize the natural light and protect from the heat.
In an architectural sense, openness and transparency are important to the people who run Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, whose total global assets are estimated at around $620billion (£547.3bn; $613.3bn).
And in what other senses? It seems that this is not the case. The PIF was described in the Financial Times last year as “opaque, a black box. Few know what’s going on there, including sometimes other government ministries”.
It is tempting to call the PIF a faceless organisation — except, again at least in a literal sense, that would not be true.
