Australians woke on Wednesday morning to the news that the Saudi backed LIV tour had merged with America’s Professional Golf Association (PGA) and DP, the European Golf Tour. The back room deals of obscure golfing organizations might appear irrelevant, but they are not. This is a blow to human rights across the globe. All three golf tours (LIV, PGA and DP) will form a new organizational entity to run men’s golf and it will largely be underpinned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). The PIF may be the world’s premier sportswashing body and it has scored a marketing coup with this amalgamation. It now has a large degree of control over the entire sport of men’s golf. Given that almost every golf tournament of consequence will be in large part funded by the Saudis, every tournament will be an exercise in sportswashing, which has now gone global. Every men’s tournament, by definition, will be an unethical event.
According to one report, what form the LIV tour will take in 2024 is now unclear (https://www.smh.com.au/sport/golf/pga-and-european-tours-in-shock-merger-with-saudi-backed-liv-20230607-p5dekc.html). This raises some interesting questions for Premier Malinauskas. After spending money to attract the LIV tour to Adelaide (we don’t know how much, because the government refuses to tell us), will the event go ahead in 2024? If it does proceed, will it still attract top-tier golfers now that PGA and DP tournaments are open to them? A trip down under in the northern hemisphere spring may be looking less appealing than it did before Wednesday’s announcement. Perhaps the most compelling question for the Premier, given the uncertainty that now hangs over the LIV tour, was the reputational damage to South Australia worth it?
The other unpalatable implication of the almost wholesale Saudi takeover of golf is, what sport is next? The answer is unclear, but it should concern all of us because no sport can now be considered safe from the sportswashing march of the Saudis. Craig Foster sums up the dangers:
Saudi Arabia taking over much of global professional sport and in so doing, co-opting influential sporting bodies & much of their fanbases as we’ve seen with @NUFC who quickly become defenders of human rights abuse & promoters of the regime.