Tuesday night saw the second of two friendly games between Saudi Arabia and South Korea played at St James’ Park.
The games take place roughly two years after the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund acquired Newcastle United.
Son Heung Min of Tottenham Hotspur and Kim Min Jae, a summer acquisition of Bayern Munich, were both picked to the South Korea starting lineup on Tuesday night.
South Korea took the lead early on with to a goal from Cho Gue Sung that turned out to be the game’s only score, giving Jurgen Klinsmann’s team a 1-0 victory.
Newcastle will profit financially and commercially from the matches, despite some criticism and controversy around the scheduling of the friendlies.
Eddie Howe, the head coach of the Newcastle Magpies, had this to say about the exhibition games in a statement made last month: All I’d say on that is I think Newcastle is an incredible venue to play not just football, but we’ve hand bands, rugby, lots of different people, sports at the stadium and it is a truly iconic place to play.
Howe said: “Yeah, possibly” when asked if the games would help United in terms of Financial Fair Play. The specifics of how the game has progressed to this point are unknown to me.
Therefore, if it was a financial decision, it’s possible it had a role.
Howe said, “To be honest, I haven’t really given it too much thought because of how hectic my calendar has been. However, I won’t discuss any potential problems over the decision to play the matches at St James’ Park.
As I mentioned, I learned about it from the media just like you people did, and I swiftly moved on.
Last winter, Saudi Arabia stunned the football world by defeating eventual World Cup champions Argentina in the tournament’s opening match in Qatar. Saudi Arabia placed last in the group after losses to Mexico and Poland in the other two group stage games.
