LIV Golf, (the alternative Saudi golf league) which is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has attracted another big name in Australian golf.
Just so we are clear, I do not have a problem with sports women and men getting well paid for their trade. I thought WSC by Packer was great and a good thing for cricket (I don’t know much about rugby but I hear good things about their change).
But this is different, I don’t think anyone really cares which body regulates these golfers, but people do care about where the money is coming from to pay for these world class players. If the money comes from the same people who murdered the journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi and chopped up his corpse in the Saudi embassy, I think that is a different question.
Another “David and Goliath” refugee case won by AR LAW Services at the AAT.
It is not enough to say “I just wanna play golf against the best in the world – it is not about politics”
Murder is so inconvenient sometimes.
As oil gets replaced by renewables, petro dollars will run out and the Saudi’s realize they must diversify, and that begins by rehabilitating the Saudi government image (business as usual behind the new image I am sure) .
And it is a problem if every time the Saudi government is mentioned everyone thinks of murdered Khashoggi chopped up in a suitcase.
Better if those same people are distracted and now can think about “golf” “Golf” GOLF!”
I am sure the Saudi government will push this line of propaganda, but I don’t think the Australian community need turn a blind eye to the actions of collaborators.
This LIV Blood money controversy is a different kind of issue, it is not just a stoush between league A and league B (the Packer scenario). It is a question of am I as a professional golfer – a role model – happy to accept payment from a murderous regime and to be bought/used as a pawn of that regime in an attempt to rehabilitate it’s public image?
