What just happened
- Donald Trump’s attorney general repeatedly told him his claims of electoral fraud in 2020 were “bullshit”, according to a US congressional committee.
- Two British citizens and a Moroccan who fought for years in Ukraine’s armed forces were sentenced to death as mercenaries by a court in Russian-held Donetsk.
- Ikea Norway said it wanted to help couples choose baby names based on those it uses for flat-packed furniture.
“We’re golfers, not politicians,” says Graeme McDowell, the former US Open winner.
“This is my job. I do it for money,” says Lee Westwood, European golfer of the year for four years including 2020.
For most of the 1970s and ‘80s the world punished South Africa for its racial apartheid with a sports boycott that prevented its teams and stars taking part in top-flight international competition. For most of the past century Saudi Arabia has enforced a form of gender apartheid of sometimes extreme severity on half its population. Much of that remains in place. It also holds public executions, jails and disappears political dissidents and has murdered and dismembered one noted regime critic.
Yet rather than boycott Saudi Arabia the sports world is embracing it.
- Newcastle FC has accepted a Saudi-backed $400 million takeover.
- Formula 1 has accepted $600 million to stage a race in Jeddah.
- And now golf has accepted $2 billion from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the country’s main sovereign wealth fund, to stage a rival to the PGA and European tours worth $25 million per tournament.
The first LIV Golf tournament is happening this weekend.
Yesterday the PGA tour suspended all 17 of its players who are taking part.
In fairness…
- The tournament is not taking place in Saudi Arabia, but at the Centurion course near Hemel Hempstead, north of London.
- Reforms enacted in the past five years have begun to lift the burden of male guardianship laws that used to constrain every aspect of Saudi women’s lives, and they have been allowed to drive.
But discrimination against women in Saudi Arabia is still systemic. As Human Rights Watch’s World Report for 2022 notes, women still need a male guardian’s permission to get married. They face discrimination “in relation to family, divorce and decisions relating to children, including child custody,” and can be sued by male guardians for “disobedience”.
Despite this the LIV tournament is going ahead with the participation of 48 of the world’s top golfers and almost no mention of women’s rights. Human rights more broadly have been discussed in the build-up to yesterday’s PGA Tour suspensions, but
- the only specific crime mentioned by critics or players in that discussion has been the 2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a government-backed Saudi hit squad in Istanbul;
- and the conduit for the Saudi money now pouring into the sport, Yasir Al Rumayyan of the PIF, has barely been confronted on his country’s record. Asked about “sportswashing”, he told the BBC’s Dan Roan he’d look it up, and left to play golf.
Of the Khashoggi murder, Greg Norman, who is the public face of the LIV tour, has said: “Look, we all make mistakes”.
Who’s in: besides McDowell and Westwood, players signed up to the Saudi-backed tour include Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson (the highest-ranked player at 15), Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia. Mickelson, winner of six major PGA championships, seemed opposed in February, when he noted Saudi Arabia’s “horrible human rights record” and asked why he would even consider the LIV offer, but has since come around to it as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”. With career earnings to date of around $300 million, he will reportedly earn another $200 million for taking part.
Who’s out: Most of the world’s highest-ranked players including Rory McIlroy and the current world no. 1, Scott Scheffler. Tiger Woods, still recovering from injury, has also turned LIV down despite what Norman said was a “high nine-figure” offer.
To note: rights groups say discrimination against women is even more severe in Qatar than Saudi Arabia. The world will descend on Doha in November even so for the World Cup.
