WASHINGTON — The chief of a Senate subcommittee is demanding the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf current data about negotiations that led to their new settlement and plans for what golf will appear like beneath the association.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., despatched letters Monday to PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and LIV CEO Greg Norman spelling out the “serious questions regarding the reasons for and terms behind the announced agreement.”
Blumenthal, who’s chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, stated he additionally wished to listen to the tour’s plans to retain its tax-exempt standing.
Last week, LIV and the tour shocked the golf world by agreeing to merge the PGA Tour and European tour with the Saudi golf pursuits, whereas additionally dropping all lawsuits between the events.
The governor of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which bankrolls LIV, will be part of the PGA Tour board of administrators and lead a brand new enterprise enterprise as its chairman. The PGA Tour itself will stay a tax-exempt entity.
It was a transfer anticipated to obtain scrutiny from federal regulators and lawmakers, and the launch of a Senate investigation is among the many first dominoes to fall.
The settlement introduced final week was to mix the golf-related companies of Saudi’s Public Investment Fund — which incorporates LIV Golf — with these of the PGA Tour and European tour. That could be a brand new for-profit firm nonetheless to be named.
Among the uncertainties is how LIV Golf goes ahead after 2023. PIF’s governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, is to be chairman of the brand new enterprise, with Monahan as CEO and two PGA Tour board members becoming a member of them on an government committee.
In his letters to Monahan and Norman, Blumenthal wrote concerning the skepticism critics maintain over the Saudis’ intent “to use investments in sports to further the Saudi government’s strategic objectives.”
Blumenthal requested for a sweeping set of paperwork — basically all communications between LIV and the tour starting in October 2021 via the current.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”