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The head of a Senate investigation into Saudi Arabia’s investments in the US has vowed to keep fighting to limit the kingdom’s influence over the sport of golf.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal welcomed a recent agreement for American sports magnates to inject $3bn into the PGA Tour’s commercial operations, and warned of intense scrutiny if the Saudi sovereign wealth fund is invited to join the deal.
News of talks between the PGA and the $700bn Public Investment Fund — which has backed a rival LIV Golf league — sparked political opposition in the US and a congressional investigation into Saudi influence in the US that has loomed over a prospective deal.
“I’m not claiming any victories here because we don’t know what the deal is,” Blumenthal told the Financial Times in an interview. “Will there be a Saudi investment? What degree of control would the Saudis have if they make an investment? We haven’t seen the end of this story yet.”
The PGA Tour and PIF shocked the sports world last June when they announced that they had put aside a bitter legal battle in order to explore unifying their respective professional golf tours. LIV Golf, which has just launched its third season, has poached a handful of star players from the PGA Tour.
Last month, the PGA Tour announced it would raise up to $3bn from Strategic Sports Group, a consortium led by Liverpool FC and Boston Red Sox owner John Henry. It said the discussions about a separate minority investment from PIF were to continue.
Blumenthal condemned Saudi Arabia’s involvement in golf as “sportswashing” and the prospect of a deal with the PGA Tour as “a powerful autocratic regime, responsible for human rights atrocities, taking over an iconic American institution to launder its public image”.
But he added: “I am very hopeful that the deal will be different than what was contemplated initially in the draft that we saw last year.”
He was not against Saudi investment in the US, he said, but wanted to ensure PIF had “minimal control” and was not able to dictate the policies of the PGA or the uniforms of players.
PIF said in a statement that it was a “rational” fund that “acts independently in carrying out its investment activities” and had injected $79bn into the US economy.
Blumenthal chairs the Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, whose probe of the PGA-PIF deal has grown into a broader examination of Saudi Arabia’s investments in the US.
The investigation has pulled American consulting firms into the congressional crosshairs. The bosses of McKinsey, BCG, Teneo and M Klein were called to testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to explain why they had not turned over documents relating to their work for the PIF, as demanded by a November subpoena.
PIF has sued the firms in Saudi Arabia to prevent them disclosing classified information, forcing them to withhold documents and redact others.
Blumenthal threatened the four firms with prosecution in the US.
“They are far from complying [with the subpoena],” he told the FT. “They’re saying, essentially, we will provide to you what the Saudis allow us to provide. If they refuse to comply, we would move to enforce the subpoenas through court action, and they would have to obey the court order or face contempt of court.”
