U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants answers from LIV Golf. What happens next?
LIV Golf posed many questions for the golf world and beyond long before its proposed merger with the PGA Tour. Now, Congress wants those questions answered.
The sport has been rocked several times over the last year with the emergence of a new Saudia Arabian-backed golf league, and then a proposed merger with that which exists, the PGA Tour. Needless to say, neither event was well received and now it seems Congress is intent on getting to the bottom of it all.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants answers from Saudi Arabia
You read that right. According to reports, a U.S. senator is now demanding that the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), the official financier of LIV Golf, comply with a congressional request for testimony and information. It’s understood that U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has released a letter to PIF governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, disputing the contention that Al-Rumayyan is an “inappropriate witness” in the Senate’s investigation of the ongoing PIF-PGA Tour agreement. As per Blumenthal’s letter, the Subcommittee “is seeking to understand the scope of PIF’s U.S.-based investments and PIF’s plans for the PGA Tour and other U.S. entities.”
For the purpose of clarity, Al-Rumayyan is a known confidant of Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and is largely regarded as the man behind both the development of LIV Golf and the partnership agreement that now exists with the PGA Tour. Al-Rumayyan and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, along with a handful of other executives, came to a shocking agreement in June after months worth of bitter feuding. There has of course been intense backlash from both players and fans, and even families of 9/11 victims who believe the idea of doing business with the Kingdom is an affront to the memory of their lost loved ones.
So, what exactly is Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s position?
For starters, there are understandably a number of concerns about Al-Rumayyan’s involvement and authority in the proposed new venture. To date, PGA Tour officials have maintained that it will, in fact, be them who control the new organization with the availability of assets from both the PGA Tour and the PIF. On the other hand, one has to assume that as the chairman of the intended venture, Al-Rumayyan would control the money involved i.e., the direction that the organization itself takes. This is where Blumenthal takes issue as he has asserted that Al-Rumayyan is “a minister bound by the Kingdom’s laws regarding the confidentiality of certain information,” and as a result can’t or won’t divulge specific details about the agreement between the PIF and PGA Tour. To be clear, Blumenthal’s letter to Al-Rumayyan directly attacked the idea that the PIF governor’s role is not significant.
“The suggestion that your role as a Saudi Foreign Minister shields you from testifying about PIF’s commercial activities is both deeply troubling and unsupported as a legal matter,” Blumenthal wrote, while also indicating that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which was previously responsible for legal action between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour prior to settlement, has already rejected Al-Rumayyan’s claims of a right to privacy because of his status within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “In short,” Blumenthal wrote, “PIF cannot have it both ways: if it wants to engage with the United States commercially, it must be subject to United States law and oversight. That oversight includes this Subcommittee’s inquiry.”
What happens now?
That’s a good question. What we do know is that Blumenthal has demanded an answer from Al-Rumayyan by August 18th. Said answer should come in the form of both “records regarding PIF’s current and planned commercial activity in the United States” and an agreement to appear before the subcommittee on September 13th. In case you didn’t know, Al-Rumayyan previously declined to appear at a subcommittee hearing in July due to undisclosed “scheduling conflicts,” something that Blumenthal also alluded to in the letter by stating that Al-Rumayyan’s “apparent reluctance to voluntarily appear raises questions about the veracity of your previously cited scheduling conflicts.” The senator also threatened to use even more force in the matter should Al-Rumayyan fail to comply.