The purchase of professional golf by a brutal regime has exposed yet again the lack of moral sanctities on the global free market
Brace for another season of upheaval in the sports world. The Arabs are coming. Again. After the Qatar World Cup raised misgivings about sportswashing, that charge is now being levelled at Saudi Arabia. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF has essentially bought professional golf, taking over the PGA Tour by merging it with LIV, a new, smaller competition golf series that Saudi Arabia launched in 2021. Last year’s World Cup taught the Saudis a very important lesson. Oil is temporary; sport is for ever.
The move has triggered outrage. Human Rights Watch declared that Saudi Arabia “is attempting to ‘sportswash’ its egregious record of human rights violations”. US media channels have numerous segments discussing the ethics of accepting money from a notoriously brutal regime. These are justified concerns: Saudi Arabia’s image problem has intensified under its leader, Mohammed bin Salman, who brought the nation into global disrepute with the grisly murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a crackdown on political opposition and the ramping up of capital punishment. Last year, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people in 24 hours for crimes that included witchcraft and drug smuggling.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist
