Saudia sign Newcastle United deal that promises to 'showcase Saudi Arabia to the UK' - Arab News

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NEWCASTLE: Newcastle United have moved to further boost their Champions League spending power by securing an extended deal with Saudia.
The Magpies and the Saudi national airline have further cemented their commercial relationship as the club’s official airline partner, in a deal that is set to cover “2023/24 and beyond.”
The renewed multi-year partnership comes after Saudia sponsored travel to and from Newcastle to Riyadh for their December 2022 warm-weather training camp in the Kingdom. During that trip, the Magpies beat Saudi Pro League outfit Al-Hilal to claim the inaugural Diriyah Season Cup at the Prince Faisal Bin Fahd Stadium.
Celebrating the news, Saudia took to X to post: “Soaring to new heights on and off the pitch. We are excited to embark on this journey with the most passionate fans in the world as @NUFC’s Official Airline Partner. Howay the lads #ThisIsHowWeFly.”
 
Soaring to new heights on and off the pitch
We are excited to embark on this journey with the most passionate fans in the world as @NUFC’s Official Airline Partner. Howay the lads#ThisIsHowWeFly pic.twitter.com/avBrHNPml3
— Saudia (@SaudiAirlinesEn) October 19, 2023
 
The statement confirming the deal said that the airline, which flies to more than 100 destinations around the world from King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, was looking to connect Newcastle United fans with the Kingdom “through exclusive offers and experiences.”
Of the agreement, Newcastle United’s chief commercial officer, Peter Silverstone, said: “This is a natural step in our growing relationship with Saudia and follows our hugely successful partnership in 2022.
“We were incredibly impressed with Saudia, both on board our flights to and from the Middle East, and in what we experienced as our teams activated our partnership during the 2022/23 season. Saudia’s partnership activations were extremely well-received by our growing local and global fanbase, with incredible digital results being achieved by both parties.
“Our ambition is to grow Newcastle United globally and to become the most popular Premier League club in Saudi Arabia and other territories around the world.
“Saudia will open up new markets for Newcastle United as we strengthen our connection with fans across the globe. We are very excited about the journey ahead. We relish the challenge and opportunity to support Saudia as it looks to expand its route network, and reach new audiences, through the huge global awareness Newcastle United can provide.”
Saudia’s Group Chief Marketing Officer Khaled Tash said: “At Saudia we have always strived to create meaningful connections that transcend boundaries, and our partnership with Newcastle United aligns with this vision. We recognized in Newcastle United a club with a rich history, strong values and a passionate fanbase that resonates with our own principles.
“The opportunity to connect with Newcastle United’s fanbase is a source of great excitement. The prospect of forging a bond with millions of fans and bringing them closer to our brand and values, and to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is truly exciting.
“With our expanding route network and premier product we are keen to reach new audiences showcasing Saudi Arabia to the UK population but also growing awareness of the multiple leisure and business travel destinations Saudia provides through its hyper-connected global network.”
The deal is not only good news for Saudia, it will be music to the ears of head coach Eddie Howe, who is looking to further strengthen the club’s squad in the January transfer window.
Newcastle have been hampered by UEFA financial fair play and Premier League “profit and sustainability” rules, which only allow a club to make a limited loss across three financial years, in recent windows, limiting what can be spent on new recruits for the Magpies’ squad, as they fight on four fronts this season.
The deal comes on the back of Newcastle penning commercial contracts with the likes of Adidas, which begins next season, and newly launched UK “iGaming” and online sports betting brand BetMGM.
LONDON: Mohamed Salah scored one goal and set up three to help Liverpool demolish Sparta Prague 6-1 and march into the Europa League quarterfinals on Thursday.
After winning 5-1 the opening leg of their last 16 tie in Prague, Liverpool scored four in the opening 14 minutes at Anfield to advance on a massive 11-2 aggregate score.
Sparta had no answer to Liverpool’s high pressure.
Salah seized the ball on the right of the area before shooting inside the far post over Sparta goalkeeper Peter Vindahl for his 20th goal of the season, becoming the first Liverpool player to score at least 20 goals in seven straight seasons.
Salah, who injured his hamstring with Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations in January, started after having been used as a substitute in both the first leg in Prague and a 1-1 draw with Manchester City on Sunday.
Darwin Nunez opened the rout with a clinical low finish seven minutes into the game after scoring two in Prague.
A minute later, Salah won the ball on the edge of the box to feed 19-year-old Bobby Clark to score his first senior goal for Liverpool to jump 2-0 up.
Salah then scored before finding Cody Gakpo with a cross to make it 4-0.
Dominik Szoboszlai made it 5-1 in the second half with a deflected shot before Gakpo added his second.
Veljko Birmancevic had the lone goal for Sparta.
In Germany, Patrik Schick came off the bench against 10-man Qarabag to score two goals in stoppage time to complete Leverkusen’s 3-2 comeback win and secure a quarterfinal spot for the Bundesliga leader.
In a dramatic second half, Abdellah Zoubir and Juninho gave the visitors a 2-0 advantage before Jeremie Frimpong started the comeback.
Leverkusen made the quarters 5-4 on aggregate to extend their unbeaten streak to 37 games across all competitions this season — a German record.
Qarabag’s Elvin Jafarguliyev received a red card in the 62nd when his team was leading 1-0.
AC Milan cruised past 10-man Slavia Prague 3-1 to reach the quarterfinals. Milan advanced 7-3 on aggregate after winning the first leg of the last 16 tie 4-2 at San Siro a week ago.
The seven-time European champions have never won the second-tier Europa League or its predecessor, the UEFA Cup.
The competition gives the Italian powerhouse their only realistic chance to win a trophy this season after they were eliminated from the Italian Cup and currently trails Serie A leader Inter Milan by 16 points.
Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rafael Leão put the result in the second leg beyond doubt with first-half goals in Prague.
Pulisic netted from 10 meters with a low shot to open the scoring in the 33rd minute and Loftus-Cheek tapped in the second into an empty net off a precise cross from Theo Hernández before Leão curled a right-footed drive from outside the area into the top right corner in first-half stoppage time.
Slavia got a consolation goal from substitute Matěj Jurasek.
Pulisic now has 11 goals in 38 appearances across all competitions in the US international’s first campaign with the Rossoneri to match his most productive season — the 2019-20 campaign at Chelsea.
Slavia’s early pressure lost steam after captain Tomas Holes received a straight red card in the 20th minute for fouling his counterpart Davide Calabria.
Milan first-choice goalkeeper Mike Maignan was injured early and was replaced by Marco Sportiello.
West Ham made the last eight by routing Freiburg 5-0 at London Stadium.
The Hammers reversed the first leg 1-0 defeat with the first-half goals from Lucas Paqueta and Jarrod Bowen.
Paqueta netted from close range after Tomáš Soucek headed to him from a corner less than 10 minutes into the game. Bowen doubled the advantage in the 32nd.
Aaron Cresswell made it 3-0 early in the second half before Mohammed Kudus completed the rout with two late goals.
West Ham, last year’s Europa Conference League champion, have won 11 straight home games in European competitions in the last two seasons.
Marseille nearly blew a 4-0 lead from the first leg against Villarreal, who scored three goals Thursday before Jonathan Clauss netted in stoppage-time for the French visitors to seal a 5-3 aggregate victory despite a 3-1 loss on the evening. Etienne Capoue, Alexander Sorloth and Yerson Mosquera scored to hand Marseille their first defeat since coach Jean-Louis Gasset took charge after five wins.
Danny Welbeck netted to lift Brighton 1-0 past Roma but that was not enough to prevent the end of the debut season for the Seagulls in Europe.
Roma made the next round 4-1 on aggregate.
Ademola Lookman and Gianluca Scamacca scored early in the second half to rally Atalanta to a 2-1 win over Sporting and into the the quarterfinals. Pedro Goncalves scored for the visitors. Atalanta advanced 3-2 on aggregate.
Benfica advanced after a 1-0 win over Rangers at Ibrox Stadium in Glagow. Rafa Silva scored in the 66th minute and the Lisbon team held on after the sides drew 2-2 last week.
The quarterfinals draw is scheduled for Friday.
Europa Conference League
In the third-tier competition, Maccabi Haifa held Fiorentina 1-1 but the Italian team — last year’s runner-up — advanced to the quarterfinals on a 5-4 aggregate score.
Viktoria Plzen prevailed 3-1 on penalties over Servette after they played both legs and extra time without scoring a goal.
Greece’s PAOK recovered from a 2-0 loss at Dinamo Zagreb in the opening leg with a 5-1 home win to advance.
Fenerbahce advanced despite a 1-0 home loss to Union Saint-Gilloise after taking 3-0 the first leg.
Aston Villa moved to the next phase after a 4-0 home victory over Ajax following their 0-0 draw in Amsterdam. Lille progressed 4-1 on aggregate after drawing Sturm Graz 1-1 at home. Club Brugge advanced with a 3-0 home win over Molde and 4-2 overall. Olympiacos scored twice in extra time to win 6-1 away and eliminate Maccabi Tel Aviv 7-5 on aggregate.
 
MILAN: AC Milan cruised past 10-man Slavia Prague 3-1 to reach the quarterfinals of the Europa League on Thursday.
Milan advanced 7-3 on aggregate after winning the first leg of the last 16 tie 4-2 at San Siro a week ago.
The seven-time European champion have never won the second-tier Europa League or its predecessor, the UEFA Cup.
The competition gives the Italian powerhouse their only realistic chance to win a trophy this season after they were eliminated from the Italian Cup and currently trails Serie A leader Inter Milan by 16 points.
Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Rafael Leão put the result in the second leg beyond doubt with first-half goals in Prague.
Pulisic netted from 10 meters with a low shot to open the scoring in the 33rd minute and Loftus-Cheek tapped in the second into an empty net off a precise cross from Theo Hernández before Leão curled a right-footed drive from outside the area into the top right corner in first-half stoppage time.
Slavia got a consolation goal from substitute Matěj Jurásek.
Pulisic now has 11 goals in 38 appearances across all competitions in the US international’s first campaign with the Rossoneri to match his most productive season — the 2019-20 campaign at Chelsea.
Slavia’s early pressure lost steam after captain Tomáš Holeš received a straight red card in the 20th minute for fouling his counterpart Davide Calabria.
Milan first-choice goalkeeper Mike Maignan was injured early and was replaced by Marco Sportiello.
West Ham made the last eight by routing Freiburg 5-0 at London Stadium.
The Hammers reversed the first leg 1-0 defeat with the first-half goals from Lucas Paquetá and Jarrod Bowen.
Paquetá netted from close range after Tomáš Souček headed to him from a corner less than 10 minutes into the game. Bowen doubled the advantage in the 32nd.
Aaron Cresswell made it 3-0 early in the second half before Mohammed Kudus completed the rout with two late goals.
West Ham, last year’s Europa Conference League champion, have won 11 straight home games in European competitions in the last two seasons.
Marseille nearly blew a 4-0 lead from the first leg against Villarreal, which scored three goals Thursday before Jonathan Clauss netted in stoppage-time for the French visitors to seal a 5-3 aggregate victory despite a 3-1 loss on the evening.
Étienne Capoue, Alexander Sørloth and Yerson Mosquera scored to hand Marseille their first defeat since coach Jean-Louis Gasset took charge after five wins.
Benfica advanced after a 1-0 win over Rangers at Ibrox Stadium in Glagow. Rafa Silva scored in the 66th minute and the Lisbon team held on after the sides drew 2-2 last week.
The quarterfinals draw is scheduled for Friday.
EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE
In the third-tier competition, Maccabi Haifa held Fiorentina 1-1 but the Italian team — last year’s runner-up — advanced to the quarterfinals on a 5-4 aggregate score.
Viktoria Plzeň prevailed 3-1 on penalties over Servette after they played both legs and extra time without scoring a goal.
Greece’s PAOK recovered from a 2-0 loss at Dinamo Zagreb in the opening leg with a 5-1 home win to earn a place in the last eight.
Fenerbahce advanced despite a 1-0 home loss to Union Saint-Gilloise after taking 3-0 the first leg.
JEDDAH: AlUla were crowned champions of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation Women’s First Division League after beating Al-Taraji 4-2 on penalties on Wednesday evening.
The two clubs faced off at Jeddah’s King Abdullah Sports City Reserve Stadium and were level at 1-1 after extra-time before AlUla triumphed on penalties to clinch the 2023/2024 title.
The two rivals had already secured promotion to the SAFF Women’s Premier League for next season.
SAFF’s Vice President Lamia Bahaian presented the championship trophy to the winners in the presence of Aalia Al-Rasheed, head of the Women’s Football Department at the organization.
Al-Amal will join AlUla and Al-Taraji in next season’s Premier League after securing the third and final promotion spot after defeating Al-Taqadum 3-1 in Wednesday’s third-place play-off.
This season’s second edition of the SAFF Women’s First Division League boasted 26 clubs in a group stage format with four groups of five teams and one group of six.
After facing each other home and away across five cities, 12 qualifiers progressed to the final rounds — again using a group stage format with four groups of three teams.
The winners from each progressed to the semifinals, where AlUla beat Al-Amal 3-0 and Al-Taraji overcame Al-Taqadum 1-0.
Some 122 matches were played over the First Division League season, underlining the positive direction of travel for professional women’s football in Saudi Arabia.
The SAFF Women’s First Division League is one of several competitions playing a crucial role in the growth of the women’s game in the Kingdom.
PARIS: Kylian Mbappe returned to the starting lineup and took just 14 minutes to score as Paris Saint-Germain beat Nice 3-1 to reach the French Cup semifinals on Wednesday.
He started the past two league games on the bench as part of coach Luis Enrique’s rotation policy, which most observers accept involves leaving out Mbappe to prepare for next season without him.
Mbappe looked sharp, expertly swapping waist-high passes with midfielder Fabian Ruiz and putting the ball between goalkeeper Marcin Bułka’s legs for his 35th goal of the season. Ten minutes later, Mbappe hit the post with a deflected shot.
PSG have won the trophy a record 14 times — but not since 2021 — and faced a Nice team that is the only one to beat PSG in the league this season.
Bułka made an awful blunder for the second goal, botching a clearance and spinning around unaware of where the ball was landing. Ruiz profited to roll it into an empty net in the 33rd.
But PSG’s defense remains vulnerable, as it has been for several years.
Nice pulled a goal back four minutes later when striker Gaetan Laborde — who scored in September when Nice won in Paris — was unmarked on the right of the penalty area and guided a low half-volley into the left corner.
Winger Jeremie Boga and right back Jordan Lotomba missed chances for Nice early into the second half as PSG’s midfield struggled. Nice were punished in the 60th when central defender Lucas Beraldo headed in a cross inadvertently flicked on by Nice defender Dante, who was trying to clear the ball.
The semifinals pit second-tier Valenciennes against Lyon on April 2. PSG will host Rennes the next day.
MADRID: Atletico Madrid bounced back from two goals down on aggregate against Inter Milan to reach the Champions League quarter-finals with a thrilling 3-2 penalty shoot-out triumph on Wednesday.
Trailing by a single goal after last month’s first leg, Atletico looked dead and buried when Federico Dimarco pushed home Inter’s opener at the Estadio Metropolitano.
But Antoine Griezmann immediately pulled the hosts level on the night and three minutes before the end of the regulation 90 minutes substitute Memphis Depay took the tie to extra time at 2-2 with a fine low finish.
That set up the decisive shoot-out which ended with Inter missing three of their five penalties, star striker Lautaro Martinez handing passage to the last eight to Atletico when he booted his spot-kick way off target.
“I think penalties are a lottery. Today luckily I stopped two,” said Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak, who saved from Alexis Sanchez and Davy Klaassen.
“It’s not easy to stop a penalty. Sometimes it looks easy from the outside but it’s not.”
“I’m very, very happy for the team because I think we did a great match,” he added. “We played well. Maybe in the last month we’ve not been in great shape but we showed we can do much more.”
The two teams could barely have come into Wednesday’s match in more contrasting form as Inter had won 13 matches on the bounce since the start of 2024 while Atletico had won only one of their last five.
However it was an even and exciting contest in the Spanish capital in which Atletico pushed hard for the win and both sides created a clutch of opportunities.
Home advantage turned out to be crucial for Atletico who have won 19 of their 21 fixtures at the Metropolitano in all competitions.
Atletico are also unbeaten in 17 knockout matches on home turf in the Champions League and in front of a passionate crowd they fought back from an impossible looking position against runaway Serie A leaders Inter.
Depay smashed a powerful effort off the woodwork moments before his strike took the two teams to an additional 30 minutes while Rodrigo Riquelme wasted a glorious chance to snatch the tie for Atletico without the need for extra time.
Inter meanwhile were left ruing two great chances on the break as Atletico pushed for their second, both Marcus Thuram and Nicolo Barella finishing poorly with chances to seal the tie.
Simone Inzaghi’s Inter now turn their attentions back to winning their 20th Serie A title while Atletico await Friday’s draw for the last eight in Nyon.
“Once we went ahead we needed to be better, those three-four minutes in order to maintain that advantage Dimarco gave us,” said Inzaghi.
“At that moment the match seemed in our hands but instead they got back into the game.”
Inter, who wasted a series of opportunities to earn a bigger first-leg advantage, are 16 points clear of AC Milan with 10 league matches remaining.
It was a fast-paced encounter from the off as Atletico pushed immediately to level the tie with aggressive pressing.
Samuel Lino burst down the left flank and tested Yann Sommer in the fifth minute before his counterpart Denzel Dumfries forced a double save from Oblak.
Inter were dangerous on the break and it was with a quick-fire exchange of passes that the away side took the lead, Dimarco confidently netting first time from Barella’s neat cut-back.
However Inter’s celebrations were almost instantly cut short when Griezmann pounced after Koke’s through ball deflected off two Inter defenders, taking his club-record goal tally to 176.
Griezmann forced a decent stop from Sommer shortly after the break as Atleti again tried to pen Inter into their own area.
Thuram blasted over after being perfectly put through by Martinez, leaving Inzaghi raging on the sidelines, before Barella shot weakly at Oblak in similarly good position.
Depay then struck and all the momentum that had been building went definitively in Atletico’s direction, eventually leading to a joyous shoot-out win.

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