A group representing victims’ families and survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States has welcomed the news that golf’s controversial peace deal will be investigated.
The PGA Tour announced last week it was creating a new commercial entity with the DP World Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which bankrolls the breakaway LIV Golf League.
The United States Senate has already opened an investigation into the shock agreement, with Senator Richard Blumenthal writing to PGA Tour chief executive Jay Monahan to say that the PGA Tour’s “sudden and drastic reversal of position concerning LIV Golf” raised “serious questions”.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, a PGA Tour official informed employees that the US Justice Department also plans to review the agreement for antitrust concerns.
Terry Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United, said: “We are pleased to see and welcome these investigations into the circumstances surrounding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s attempted acquisition of one of America’s cherished institutions – the PGA Tour.
“9/11 Families United has long called into question the Saudi’s use of sportswashing with the LIV Golf Tour and this announcement proves that we are not alone in our fight for truth and accountability with the Kingdom, which has relied on an ‘army’ of paid consultants and lobbyists spanning several years to evade any responsibility for the brutal attack on our country and murder of our loved ones.
“As previous court documents made clear, LIV Golf was never about economics for the Saudis and there has never been a rational economic reason for spending billions on golf.
“As even the PGA Tour’s commissioner agreed only months ago, the Kingdom is using LIV Golf to improve the Kingdom’s standing in the world, and now the the Kingdom is leveraging LIV to take over the PGA Tour, giving it an even larger sportswashing enterprise.”
It is understood that the PGA Tour views the Justice Department’s reported investigation as an extension of the existing probe prompted by the litigation with LIV, litigation which was ended by the proposed deal.
