The nostalgic (de)legitimation of sportswashing: Social media and legacy media reactions to the Saudi Arabian state takeover of Newcastle United

On 7 October 2021, a consortium led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund completed a takeover of Newcastle United Football Club. The takeover was both welcomed by many Newcastle fans and criticised as an act of sportswashing by other supporter groups, human rights groups, and media outlets. In this article, we explore the interaction between nostalgia and sportswashing in football discourse through an examination of social media and legacy media responses to the Saudi Arabian State takeover of Newcastle United Football Club. We explore how nostalgia was mobilised within the sports media landscape, with a focus on Twitter and British newspapers, to legitimise or dele-gitimise sportswashing in the year after the takeover. We argue that while nostalgia carries activist potential in the delegitimation of sportswashing, this is largely unrealised, as it occupies separate discursive spaces to hopeful forms of football support that choose to legitimise or ignore sports-washing.