PGA Tour Can Depose Saudi Wealth Fund’s Leader, Judge Rules
Instead, the judge wrote, the wealth fund was “the moving force behind the founding, funding, oversight and operation of LIV.” Al-Rumayyan, she wrote elsewhere in her order, “was personally involved in and himself carried out many” of the wealth fund’s activities to create and develop LIV.
A new series. The debut of the Saudi-financed LIV Golf series in 2022 resurfaced longstanding questions about athletes’ moral obligations and their desire to compete and earn money. Here’s what to know:
What is LIV Golf? The series is a breakaway professional golf circuit bankrolled by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. Its organizers hope to position it as a player-power-focused alternative to the PGA Tour, which has been the highest level of pro golf for nearly a century.
Why is the new series controversial? The event has created sparks within golf for upending the traditions and strictures of how the game is played. It has also become a lightning rod for human rights campaigners who accuse Saudi Arabia of using sports to launder its reputation.
What is attracting the players? The LIV Golf events are the richest tournaments in golf history. The first tournament’s total purse was $25 million, and the winner’s share was $4 million. The last-place finisher at each event was guaranteed $120,000. That is on top of the appearance fees and nine-figure signing-on payouts some players have accepted.
A representative of the wealth fund declined to comment, but its lawyers said in a separate court filing that it and al-Rumayyan “respectfully intend to seek review of the order,” which van Keulen initially issued under seal last week.
Over the last year, LIV Golf, backed by billions of dollars from the Saudi wealth fund, has enticed a handful of elite players away from the PGA Tour in exchange for some of the most lucrative contracts in the sport’s history. But the signings of headline players — including Sergio García, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Cameron Smith — have revealed only so much about LIV Golf’s ambitions and the wealth fund’s motives for investing billions of dollars in an enterprise that McKinsey Company consultants warned was nothing close to a sure bet.
LIV Golf and its champions say they are seeking to revive a sport whose professional level, they contend, has grown stale. The PGA Tour, facing perhaps the greatest competitive threat in its history, and its supporters complain that the rebel series is promoting a diluted version of the game and helping Saudi Arabia distract from its record on human rights.
Although much of what it has learned in litigation remains under seal, the PGA Tour has depicted LIV Golf as routinely subservient to the desires and whims of the wealth fund, formally known as the Public Investment Fund, and al-Rumayyan, an avowed golf fan who is close to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Prince Mohammed is the wealth fund’s chairman.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/sports/golf/liv-pga-saudi-influence.html