Newcastle United are on the brink of being taken over by the Saudi Arabian PIF Fund led by Muhammad Bin Salman with a £300M deal arranged by British financier Amanda Stavely and her PCP Capital group that could dramatically shift the balance of power in English football back towards the North-East like it was in the mid-1990s with Sir John Hall and Kevin Keegan's Entertainers and early 2000s under Sir Bobby Robson's management and promises genuine hope for the football club, city and region.

Perhaps inevitably, the takeover has received criticism and condemnation from certain quarters including Amnesty International, concerned about Saudi Arabia's past human rights violations and beIN Sport, who wrote to all 20 clubs to attempt the stop the deal due to the ongoing question of piracy and TV broadcast rights in the Middle-East region.

Yet while there are genuine concerns being raised and no Newcastle fan is ignoring these, most of the ire is thinly-veiled fear and jealousy from the high-profile supporters of other teams be they TV presenters, journalists or talk show hosts - supporters of Manchester United and Sunderland among the most vociferous - who know that a fully-functioning Newcastle United backed with competitive transfer funds will again be a threat to the established sporting order that has developed in the last decade.

When Manchester United were linked with being taken over by the exact same PIF group led also by Mohammed Bin Salman as late as February, barely an eyelid was batted by nation's media, in fact it was a move very much encouraged and, furthermore, Manchester United themselves agreed a strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia yesterday:

"the partnership forms part of Saudi Vision 2030; the plan to diversify the Saudi economy and to develop its public sectors, announced last year by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman."

Much-hailed Sheffield United who have done tremendously well in their first season back in The Premier League are also owned by Saudi businessman Prince Abdullah, who counts the family of Osama Bin Laden as his personal friends -"a good family" of whom Bin Laden was 'the black sheep' -who part-funded The Blades to the tune of £3M'.

Ian Mearns, Member of Parliament for Gateshead and lifelong Newcastle fan said:

“There is an element of double standards about this. The Saudis are spending billions of quid on other industries in this country and on armaments that are getting licenses from the present Government."

Complaints against the Newcastle takeover are reminiscent of those in the excellent Netflix series, 'The English Game' by the Old Etonians when the onset of professionalism and paid players by the emerging Northern working class clubs threatens the supremacy of their 'gentlemanly' sides but *Spoiler Alert* nothing can stop the rushing onset of modernity and the game moves on with money its new king.

The Premier League has always thrived on the unpredictability of an open contest since the days Geordie Sir John Hall did as much as anyone to help establish it as The Best League in The World & in the 21st century now provides high-octane, exciting football as the ultimate vehicle of international sporting entertainment and inclusivity with the beautiful game acting as a bridge to global unity on matchdays as billions worldwide tune into games whether in Europe, Africa, Asia, The Americas or The Middle East.

To exclude a country, a nation, a Kingdom like Saudi Arabia - whose global economic investment portfolio The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) contains stakes in the names of essential modern companies like Twitter, Uber and ironically the London-based Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, whose Man United-supporting journalist Miguel Delaney has hypocritically been the most vocal critic of the Toon takeover, not to mention the oil and petrol that fuels all of our motor vehicles - from the world football party goes against everything the global game and the all-welcoming Premier League stands for.

I experienced the unique togetherness that only the international language of football can provide so easily first hand with a family of Saudi Arabian fans in Newcastle as Fate would have it during the last World Cup as we watched the opening match of the Russia 2018 World Cup together and the power of football to break down barriers and connect people instantly was truly in evidence despite Russian goals raining in their goal.

Are we going to deprive the current and future generations of Saudi Arabian football fans access to the beautiful game and with it access to important cultural influences?

Moreover, are the City of Newcastle upon-Tyne and its citizens going to be denied the huge positive benefits that the investment of Saudi money in the city could bring?

I know only too well as the Social Media Manager of the NUFC Fans' FoodBank that The West End FoodBank in Newcastle is the biggest and busiest in Britain feeding 1000 people per week and 25% of the food and income donated to the FoodBank annually comes from Newcastle fans on matchdays and there are great hopes on Tyneside that the PIF fund could could help the charity sector in Newcastle and help with the regeneration of the whole city as our volunteer and spokesman Bill Corcoran explains in this NUFC Chronicle PodCast:

The transformation of Manchester City the football club and just as, if not more importantly, the city of Manchester in the deprived blue half by investment by Sheikh Mansour and the Abu Dhabi group into the Etihad Campus and community programs has regenerated the local area in Manchester beyond all recognition offering hope where there was only helplessness and Newcastle is in desperate need of similar investment having been ground even further down in the last decade by austerity.

Naturally, every takeover and strategy for rebuilding a club is different and it remains to be seen how the Saudis, Stavely and the Reubens will go about awakening the ultimate sleeping giant in world football, Newcastle United. Bringing in an ex-Newcastle legend like Les Ferdinand, who is currently working at QPR as Director of Football with Jamie Reuben, would be a great first step alongside a dynamic new young manager with the streetwise Argentine Mauricio Pochettino the current name on everyone's lips.

While a lot of media attention outside of Tyneside has focused on the negative side of a deal interpreted by its critics at least as "Sportswashing" - creating through sport and positive public relations a respectable veneer for a ruthless regime - the deal will do a lot of good for the city of Newcastle upon-Tyne both on and off the pitch and in many ways represents a chance of a new start and even redemption for Saudi Arabia, and Muhammad Bin Salman about whom it must be stressed, no allegations against him have been proven & he's had no problem getting the Royal treatment in England.

“One can convert only a sinner, never a saint.”

― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game

The additional scrutiny that will now be trained on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be more intense than it ever has been both globally and in Britain as the world of sport reaches every popular corner of the globe and very serious issues that were outside the domain of the mass entertainment audience are now in its full glare.

Newcastle fans, who can be rightly proud of unwavering loyal support of a football club through thick and thin under Mike Ashley's largely unpopular regime, are a force for good at their best and generous, open-minded supporters of so many positive, enlightened causes like the NUFC Fans FoodBank, United With Pride and United Against Facism and will expect their new owners to embrace and live up to the standards and value of the modern world in which the football club they have bought exists as another Newcastle fan and MP Tweeted:

Among Newcastle's high profile football community, legendary former no.9 Malcolm 'SuperMac' Macdonald, called for a separation of sport and politics:

"There have been issues with Saudi Arabia and quite ugly ones too," Supermac told The Everything is Black and White Podcast. "But politics should never enter sport.

"I would be very dismayed if the Premier League were to allow that to happen.

"Keep the politics right out of it because this is a deal which is going to be great not just for Newcastle United, Tyneside, but also for the whole of the Premier League."

Football at its best is the ultimate vehicle for people of different cultures, creeds, colours and countries to come together to enjoy a sporting spectacle that uplifts, thrills, agonizes and delights often in the same match if you're a Newcastle fan and the global game is historically an important tool for unity among people and nations.

The beautiful game - for it still that at its heart and essence - can be a beacon of hope and in Newcastle's case especially, a takeover that will potentially return the club to its former position as genuine challengers will surely be a good thing for us all concerned despite the rest of the Premier League and many of its vocal fans looking as terrified at the prospect as I've seen them since Alan Shearer last graced the pitch in black & white.