US Senate panel rips into Saudi involvement in PGA Tour-LIV Golf tie-up By Reuters

By Diane Bartz and Frank Pingue

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal tore right into a “repressive” Saudi regime on Tuesday and known as the PGA Tour’s framework settlement with the nation’s Public Funding Fund an try by Saudi Arabia’s authorities to “purchase affect” in U.S. sports activities.

Blumenthal delivered his harsh criticism throughout a three-hour listening to the place two PGA Tour officers testified concerning the U.S.-based circuit’s framework settlement with the Public Funding Fund (PIF), which controls LIV Golf.

Saudi Arabia’s PIF governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, would be the chairman of the brand new entity, known as NewCo within the framework, whereas PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan will function CEO.

“At this time’s listening to is about rather more than the sport of golf,” stated Blumenthal. “It’s about how a brutal, repressive regime can purchase affect – certainly even take over – a cherished American establishment merely to cleanse its public picture.

“A regime that has killed journalists, jailed and tortured dissidents, fostered the battle in Yemen, and supported different terrorist actions,” added Blumenthal, who spoke of a sense of “betrayal.”

The Justice Division, which has been investigating the PGA Tour for attempting to maintain its gamers from defecting to LIV, may decide to sue to dam the deal. It is also reviewed by the Committee on Overseas Funding in the USA, or CFIUS, a Treasury-led committee that assesses mergers to find out whether or not they hurt nationwide safety.

Critics have accused LIV Golf of being a automobile for Saudi Arabia to enhance its repute, or “sports-washing,” because it faces criticism of its human rights file, together with the 2018 homicide of Washington Publish journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in addition to its file on girls’s rights and homosexual rights.

The Saudi embassy in Washington didn’t instantly reply to Reuters when requested to remark.

The PGA Tour’s stunning settlement with the PIF has raised issues in Washington from lawmakers who’re mistrustful of the dominion and significant of its human rights file. They’ve vowed to take a deep look into the deal.

PGA Tour Chief Working Officer Ron Value and board member Jimmy Dunne on Tuesday testified earlier than the Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations, which was chaired by Blumenthal.

“The PGA Tour just isn’t that huge by way of gamers. If (LIV) takes 5 gamers a yr, in 5 years they’ll intestine us,” Dunne stated whereas detailing the menace LIV Golf would have been to the tour if a deal had not been reached.

Pressed on the quantity of Saudi monetary involvement, Value stated: “There’s been discussions. It could be a major quantity. North of $1 billion.”

Blumenthal instructed Value and Dunne they nonetheless have an opportunity to face up towards sportswashing, towards the Saudi monarch, and to face up for America.

“There’s something that stinks about this path that you just’re on proper now as a result of it’s a give up and it’s all concerning the cash and that is the explanation for the backlash that you just see,” the senator stated.

The Senate committee additionally launched a 276-page memo that included new correspondence on how the framework deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi-funded LIV Golf got here collectively.

Within the memo, it was revealed that the PGA Tour requested a facet settlement with the PIF that LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman, a former world number-one golfer who has been the general public face of the breakaway circuit, can be fired upon completion of a closing settlement.

It additionally revealed a proposal for each Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, two of the game’s largest names, to personal LIV Golf groups and take part in not less than 10 occasions on the breakaway circuit.

Members of 9/11 Households United, whose relations had been victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults, attended the listening to, and the advocacy group additionally submitted a press release for the official file.

“At this time we’re watching a very weird spectacle, because the PGA Tour is successfully turning over the sport of golf to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We all know why the PGA Tour is doing it — it’s for the cash. However that isn’t why the Saudis are doing it,” wrote Terry Strada, nationwide chair of 9/11 Households United.

“They’re doing it as a public relations technique to distract from their authoritarian previous and current, and particularly their unacknowledged culpability for supporting al Qaeda and the hijackers of September 11,” Strada stated.

The Saudi authorities has lengthy denied involvement within the assaults, by which airplanes hijacked by al Qaeda crashed into New York’s World Commerce Heart, the Pentagon outdoors Washington, and a Pennsylvania discipline. Almost 3,000 individuals died.