Black Friday at the Old Trafford
Qatari billionaires love spending their money on things loaded with symbolism of European old-world traditions some of which can’t be measured by the weight of gold-plated Arab credit cards. A bit like American Gilded Age millionaires who bought and installed ceilings and marble floors from Italian palazzos in their lavish mansions in Newport. Now take that and multiply it by a hundred. Thousand. That’s roughly what you see when you take a peak in the private world of people like the sheikh Jassim who recently submitted an offer to buy the legendary English club Manchester United for over five billion pounds.
You might say, hey, you can’t put a pricetag on something with a priceless tradition and a global fan community. This football club is not just one the most famous in the world, it’s also, for many internationals, the only thing they associate with the English city. Though its music credentials are equally impressive, with Morissey, Oasis and and Joy Division. I bet you had no idea either. And then there’s Ian Mc Kellen and Benedict Cumberbatch too. Hence Mancunians put the cherry on the cake of many English success stories over the years in the arts as well.
Neoliberal capitalism has turned thousands of years of human heritage into a perpetually discounted supermarket shelf for onepercenters. That’s the only explanation behind the destiny of many artworks, buildings and teams are within reach for sheiks and the like.
One of the most famous examples is the 2017 sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece to the crown prince of Qatar, reportedly for 450 million dollars. You might ask, why are you surprised? Isn’t that the same guy who rigged the World Cup elections to be held in his miniature monarchy? Well, this country is like an oil tycoon with a small dick: it’s half the size of his wallet, but his wallet is much bigger than yours.
There were times when you didn’t need an auction house to do this. You’d just rip it off the building, with locals helping you do it for a paycheck that’s a miniature fraction of the value of work they were doing. All those Egyptian obelisks didn’t fly over to Europe in the economy class of Ryanair since those who imported them take their own planes anyway.
At the Pergamon museum in Berlin, you can see the imposing, meticulously restored Ishtar Gate, which originally stood in the city of Babylon. It looks like somebody took out your tooth and put it into a glass case in a gallery. It’s out of place, distinctively lacking that appeal only the outdoors could provide with the reflection of the sun on its blue tiles.
Rober Koldewey was the German archaeologist in charge of excavacating the Babylonian gate. The German Oriental Society, which was financially involved in the project, covered its sizeable costs by smuggling 118 of the 120 lion friezes that used to align the Procession Street.
It wouldn’t be the first nor the last time important Middle-Eastern art ends up in Berlin. In 1912, Ludwig Borchardt found the bust of Nefertiti in Amarna, which is now on display at the Neues Museum, practically next door to the Ishtar Gate. Colonial laws allowed France and Germany to use the Valley of the Kings and other locations as a flea market for their museum displays.
My uncle owns a villa on the Adriatic coast in one of those towns where the Viennese elite gathered to gamble and enjoy the view from mansions overlooking private grottos and beaches. During the restoration, he bought antique furnishings to match the crown mouldings and re-painted the armchairs in gold. They wouldn’t look out of place at the Kremlin. He owns a night club in Slovenia. In one photo, he’s wearing a gold suit and a dollar-patterned scarf like a true smalltown Steve Rubell. He’s certainly not a sheikh and but you can’t blame the guy for trying to look the part. Note to myself: fur coats look good only on Jay Z.
Mohamed Bin-Salman isn’t trying to play the part, he’s the very embodiment of it. At the World Cup he put on a show that in spite of all its lavishness didn’t manage to silence his critics who had a field day climbing to the summit of the prince’s mountain of scandals. But now the shoe was on the other foot: it’s no longer about European cultural pillage that’s been going on for centuries in the region. Salman doesn’t need a war to get his hands on Premier League clubs or prime real estate in central London.
Here, money is of no consequence and the cash cows are overloaded with milk. That also makes the concept of non-material value increasingly irrelevant, putting into question the whole point of heritage. There’s nothing new about the link between beauty and money. Ishtar’s Gate in Berlin is the living proof of it. There has to be a poin where it all loses its appeal. A little bit like wealthy Arab women who spend absurd amounts of money on Chanel yet you’ll never see one in the little black dress. This is the the line between an investment and a waste.
If everything’s within reach, it loses its appeal and a deeper meaning. European middle-class racists and islamophobes have a huge problem with immigrants coming in with their big families which is the discourse on which right-wing politics in Hungary and France have built their newfound popularity. On the other hand, the English might be hardly bothered too much by the fact that Muslim money is buying cornerstones of their identity, like Manchester United. Or lining the pockets of their new sovereign with a million pounds. You can never be too rich, after all.
People who spend they black Friday at Zara instead of Sotheby’s tend to have a rather romantic view of all of this, myself included. Yes, this is something that defines the continuity and character of our communities. On the other hand, it’s a yet another investment that’s going to be auctioned off at some point the future again, to be acquired maybe by a Silicon Valley billionaire or a Russian oligarch. But it has happened before as well. Arsenal’s Emirates stadium didn’t get its name due to frequent flier miles but the eponymous Arab airline. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
But something tells me we’ll never see Ramadan prayers on the lawn of Old Trafford. That might be the one treshold no one dares to cross. Not that it wouldn’t be unusual: there’s a “no prayers” sign in a nature reserve here because a group of Arab visitors decided to improvise since there was no mosque in sight. Football prides itself in its ability to unite. Due to its competitive nature, I’d rather twist it: unite to divide. It fuels violence which has become ubiqutous with football. You’ll never see hooligans at Ascot. Maybe they just can’t afford the tickets or a fascinator.
But you don’t sell family jewels to the highest bidder. I couldn’t even if would, because in my case at least, you’d have to cut them off and trust me, it’s not worth the trouble. While I doubt the pricetag for Manchester United would break the sheikh’s bank, I also doubt you have to put everything under hammer if there’s no definitive need for it. People like Salman and Jassim can easily outbid most people for whatever their heart might desire. It’s simultaneously frustrating and ridiculous.
However, there are ocassional situations where they don’t really get their way. In 2019, an another wealthy sheikh wanted to have a good time at an elite night club in Dubrovnik. Surprisingly, it turned out he couldn’t foot the bill and simply refused to pay so the police solved the problem.
In the end, he went back to his yacht with much lighter pockets than he expected. Maybe for the first time in his life, he found himself in a situation like this. Since Qatari investors are also at the helm of PSG, this might be only the beginning of the Arab shopping spree in the Champions League. I can already hear the ka-chings singing: lay out the kilims, there’s a new face in the skybox.
