Yasir Al-Rumayyan, head of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and the de facto head of LIV Golf, has been accused of “having carried out the instructions” of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with “malicious intent” according to a lawsuit filed in Canada.
Monahan spoke at the New York Times DealBook Summit, covering a number of topics from the tumultuous past year that included the continued threat of losing players to LIV Golf, the tour’s surprise framework agreement with PIF in negotiations unknown to the players, and the subsequent leave of absence Monahan took to address his own mental health issues.
The United States Senate has issued a subpoena to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund’s US subsidiary in wake of PIF’s planned partnership with the PGA Tour.
Those doing the questioning made sure the proceedings were entertaining, and occasionally informative, with a 267-page document dump at the hearing’s onset offering a number of surprising admissions.
The documents, which can be read in full within this story, include internal e-mails, text messages, and other communications between both parties that show some intricacies of how a high stakes deal like this came together.
In the basic agreement that was signed on May 30, none of these proposals were included, and it still remains unclear if any of them are still being considered.
Attorney Larry Klayman, who has been seeking a class-action antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, wrote that the release of the documents appeared to be a clerical error by the court.
The PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is the primary financial backer of LIV Golf, have announced a treaty and potential merger, ending two years of civil war in professional golf.
Should the ruling hold – Freeman has scheduled a hearing for Friday – it would give unprecedented access into the business dealings of the sovereign wealth fund, which Saudi Arabia has long fought to keep secret.
The judge did rule in LIV’s favour that the tour must narrow its scope of subpoenas, writing the subpoenas “suffer from overbreadth both in scope and number of requests.”
The news that LIV Golf failed to generate much revenue is not necessarily a surprise. LIV failed to attract a traditional television deal or sponsorship in 2022 while spending hundreds of millions of dollars in player and employee contracts, event purses, and tournament buildout.
Australian Golf Digest
