A new for-profit entity will oversee the commercial interests of the proposed merger between the U.S. and European men’s professional golf leagues and their Saudi-backed rival.
The entity is part of the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and DP World Tour and LIV Golf signed on May 30 and announced on June 6. The PGA Tour will control the entity, while Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the financial backer of LIV Golf, will invest in a subsidiary that will boost the joint venture’s financial situation “through targeted mergers and acquisitions to globalize the sport.”
The agreement also ended all lawsuits the PGA Tour and LIV Golf filed against each other during their bitter yearlong feud.
The agreement was signed after several months of secret negotiations between PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, DP World chief executive Keith Pelley, and PIV governor Yasir al-Rumayyan.
Monahan was denounced as a hypocrite after criticizing several high-profile PGA Tour members who defected to the higher-paying LIV Golf.
The deal intensified accusations that Saudi Arabia is investing in professional golf and other global sports as a means of glossing over its poor human rights record — especially the brutal 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a group of Saudi agents allegedly sent by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The framework was part of several documents handed over to U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, who has convened a hearing on July 11 about the agreement.
The proposed merger is also under scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department into whether it violates federal antitrust laws.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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