{"id":869487,"date":"2026-08-26T21:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/869487\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T21:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:38:12","slug":"liv-golf-news-2026-up-to-90-per-cent-of-staff-fired-as-saudi-pif-funding-dries-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/869487\/","title":{"rendered":"LIV Golf News 2026: Up to 90 per cent of staff fired as Saudi PIF funding dries up"},"content":{"rendered":"

LIV Golf<\/a> told its staff in a short meeting that 90 per cent of them will be laid off next week.<\/p>\n

The breakaway league employs approximately 300 people through its New York and London offices, but after the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF)\u2019s funding ended at the weekend<\/a>, the vast majority will be let go.<\/p>\n

\"Kieran<\/p>\n

LIV Golf Adelaide.\u00a0nna\\alyssa.bone<\/p>\n

They were given 30-day termination notices earlier this month, but insiders have said that the scale of the downsizing still took staff by surprise.<\/p>\n

The executives are believed to have been retained, as well as a skeleton staff \u2013 \u201cmaybe a couple per department\u201d, a source told Telegraph Sport \u2013 \u201cto ensure LIV Golf is well-positioned for this transition to its next chapter and continuing to work toward making LIV 2.0 a reality\u201d.<\/p>\n

An official statement said: \u201cThe funding commitment announced by PIF earlier this year will reach its conclusion. As a result, we are scaling back operations as we transition to the next chapter of LIV Golf and work toward making LIV 2.0 a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week, we informed many of our colleagues that their employment under LIV 1.0 will end in the first week of September. We are grateful to our employees for their hard work and dedication in building LIV Golf, and we remain committed to supporting those affected through this transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott O\u2019Neil, LIV\u2019s chief executive, has set himself a September deadline to tie down the $420m of funding that is required to make the new iteration emerge in 2027. O\u2019Neil announced last month that there was a lead investor who has signed a \u201cterm sheet\u201d.<\/p>\n

That is understood to be BC Partners, the London-based equity and credit agency, although no details have been released. O\u2019Neil refused to rule out that LIV could be taken into bankruptcy, but Friday\u2019s news makes this scenario more likely.<\/p>\n

There are vendors and contractors who are owed millions of dollars, and they include Jon Rahm<\/a>, who, it is understood, still has a nine-figure sum awaiting on his $420m signing-on fee. It remains to be seen whether PIF do right by the Spaniard and, indeed, by the lesser-paid contractors within the offices, some of whom have not received reimbursement for a few months.<\/p>\n

That is one of the hurdles O\u2019Neil is trying to clear as time runs out. On Thursday, laid-off staff were assured that there will be opportunities for re-employment should LIV 2.0 materialise.<\/p>\n

However, O\u2019Neil has previously stressed that LIV 2.0 would be a more compact and efficient organisation than the profligate LIV 1.0 and staffing would be significantly scaled back. The cutbacks will be highlighted by the fact that there would be only 10 tournaments and prize money would fall to roughly a third of what they have been in the first four seasons.<\/p>\n

It is widely expected that there will be several player departures, with Telegraph Sport reporting a few weeks ago that the LIV executives are \u201calmost resigned\u201d to Rahm leaving. <\/p>\n

Tyrrell Hatton is Rahm\u2019s Ryder Cup partner and his Legion XIII teammate and he expressed his belief on Thursday that LIV will carry on. <\/p>\n

\"Jon<\/p>\n

Jon Rahm in action at LIV Golf.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cI would expect there to be LIV next season,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know they have worked really hard to getting funding stuff in place. So I know it\u2019s full steam ahead on that front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hatton, who is playing here at the British Masters, refused to discuss his LIV future, pointing out that he has \u201cmultiple years\u201d left on the contract he signed at the start of 2024, and the deal reportedly included a $70m signing-on fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV Golf told its staff in a short meeting that 90 per cent of them will be laid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-869487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}