Genuine question - if another despotic regime - say, the Assad family - decided to take over Oxford United with the promise of shitloads of money, what would you do? I have to admit that I'd find it hard not to get suckered in. I may end up boycotting out of principle initially but would probably drift back in a completely hypocritical move because the prospect of good earnings would attract top players here. Football is entertainment and I'd hope that mo' money equaled mo' entertainment.
It's for that reason that I can't quite give the Newcastle fans the kicking they deserve for their a**e-licking welcoming of the Saudis. I heard one fan say 'we've got our club back' - no you f*****g haven't, you plank. You've seen it go into the hands of a regime worse than Mike Ashley. The hatred of Ashley seems to have blinded all of them to common sense and finding the moral compass.
That said, it's easy to say that when you're an outsider looking in. When it's your own club and the future prospects are ones of sunlit uplands, you're happy to brush the murkier parts of the deal under the carpet.
I do hope it goes tits up for them though. For their treatment of Steve Bruce, for their high opinion of themselves as fans as 'deserving' of success, for their inane misty-eyed mythologising over outdated concepts like 'a big number nine' (Shola Ameobi was crap and dined out on having that moniker for years up there), for their acceptance of anything as long as isn't Mike Ashley, I hope it goes as wrong as it can do.
It seems as though only Middlesbrough and Hartlepool are the teams that live in the real world. Even Darlington went mental with crooked George Reynolds building them that colossal white elephant stadium. Something in the Newc'y Brown Ale up there perhaps?