It was a sultry Friday night in Riyadh, six months after Saudi Arabia had bought Newcastle United, and the crowds who packed the dusty thoroughfares and shisha cafes had not the remotest thought of Jamaal Lascelles and Allan Saint-Maximin. Mohamed Salah was the player on their minds.
A group of loud, demonstrative people, among 6,000 there to watch a match between two of the city’s oldest football rivals, insisted that if Salah were signed by Newcastle, they really would be interested in the state’s new sports asset. ‘Everyone would be a Newcastle fan then,’ said an extremely confident English-speaking Saudi, who called himself ‘Pete’.