(Adelaide) Greg Norman, the boss of the LIV Tour, a golf competition financed by Saudi funds and dissident of the PGA Tour, defended Thursday his links with Riyadh and assured that golf was “a force for progress”.
The circuit has been accused by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) of participating in “sportwashing”, a process which allows a country to improve its reputation through sport, in the benefit of Riyadh to fend off criticism of its record in this area, particularly after the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
The LIV circuit is funded by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Its creation rocked the world of golf in 2022, attracting many golfing stars with record prize pools of $25 million per event.
Mohammed bin Salman has been named by Turkish and American officials as the mastermind behind the assassination. “MBS” later said that he took responsibility for the murder as a leader, but denied having knowledge of it before it was committed.
Greg Norman said Thursday in Adelaide, on the eve of the start of the championship in Australia for the first time, that he had never met Mohammed bin Salman to talk about the country’s human rights record, stressing that it was not was not his job.
” For what ? Because I’m the CEO of LIV Golf Investments and that’s what I’m dedicated to, I’m dedicated to golf and I stay focused on golf,” he said in Adelaide.
“Golf is a force for progress,” he added. “I built golf courses in third world countries, in communist countries. So golf is a force for progress.”
The day before, an HRW researcher, Joey Shea, had accused the LIV circuit of participating in “sportwashing”.
“We truly consider LIV Golf to be a major sportswashing attempt by Saudi Arabia to cover up its egregious abuses,” she told Australian broadcaster ABC.
Sitting alongside Greg Norman, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said hosting the tournament was an economic boon.
“LIV is not a representative of Saudi Arabia, LIV is a landscape-changing golf tournament and I think that’s a good thing,” Malinauskas said.