The legal basis for freezing abramovich's assets I still can't get my head around, but the motive is clear. The west categorises abramovich as a robber baron, a kind of old time Chicago hoodlum, with Putin as gangster boss, whose wealth is nothing more than ill gotten gains, like a bank robber, except he stole his money from the Russian people and as the leader of his gang has now crossed the line and invaded Ukraine, the government has seized his loot.
No one is saying that the money that flows in to Newcastle or City is ill gotten, what they're saying is that in Saudi and the UAE a form of state capitalism exists. Large private companies, in the way we understand them, don't exist in the Gulf and any company of any size has to have a titular high ranking Saudi or Emirati at its head, and as these countries are semi feudal societies these high ranking individuals often wear many hats, one of which will be governmental, so there is a direct link between large companies and the state via these individuals, in our case Sheikh Mansour, and therefore these companies, so the story goes, are complicit in the actions of the state.
But think on this.
The west is engaging in economic warfare with Putin, thousands of huge privately owned western companies no longer trade with Russia! Hang on a minute, how can free market capitalist countries do this? How can Biden or Macron or Johnson walk to a podium and declare this state policy? This isn't communist North Korea, this isn't feudal UAE with their "state" run companies! There's a huge divide between the state and the free market in the west! Companies are not servants of the state! They can do as they please!
Yeah, right.
Pot meet kettle.
There are many levers a western government can use with sanctions and one of its biggest is its gargantuan size as an economic player. It's important to recognise that government expenditure in western economies is huge, France 62% of GDP, Germany 51%, UK 50% even the USA 46%. If western corporations want to do business, they tow the line when the government requires it. I've no doubt Biden didn't have to call Boeing to pull the plug on Russia, because if Boeing wanted to do business with the US government in the future, it made that decision itself. You don't need a politician, royal or otherwise, at the head of a corporation to make it do the state's bidding, western capitalism with shareholders and what not can and will do the same if they're "motivated".
What Neville is saying, in a completely unfocused way, is the UAE is "motivated" by sportswashing and as we're state owned we're an organ of that state, directed by Sheikh Mansour and consequently the purchase of City was not a simple investment decision, but an important piece in a state run propaganda campaign, a massive PR exercise to improve the global appeal of the UAE. But in reality the UAE has nothing to sportswash. The country has been a desirable destination for a number of high profile sporting events for decades and get this! 16.73 million tourists in 2019! 460,000 western expats live there, 3,200 foreign companies are based there. Neville's best mate Beckham has a home there, Carraghers beloved Liverpool has a football academy in Dubai.
In a nutshell Caragher and Neville are idiots.