{"id":424339,"date":"2026-04-30T01:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/424339\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T01:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T01:20:08","slug":"saudi-arabia-to-end-liv-golf-funding-after-this-season-say-reports-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/424339\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia to end LIV Golf funding after this season, say reports \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

LIV Golf executives are poised to confirm to players that Saudi Arabia\u2019s funding of the circuit will cease at the end of 2026, in a move that will begin a scramble between some leading names in the sport to return to traditional tours. The news follows reports earlier this month that the Saudis were considering stopping funding LIV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Without an alternative and unlikely funding source from 2027 onwards, LIV in its current form is staring at closure just four years on from staging its first tournament. Nothing has materially changed for LIV in recent weeks yet formal admission of an upcoming Saudi exit will be viewed as a key moment in a disruption story that is heading towards a messy finale.<\/p>\n

The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has ploughed more than $5 billion (\u20ac4.3 billion) into LIV, informed the tour\u2019s management of a change in approach during meetings in New York immediately after the conclusion of this month\u2019s Masters. The conflict in the Middle East has been cited at least in part for that stance. Yasir al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF and a champion of LIV since inception, is no longer understood to be be playing a key role in the breakaway tour\u2019s future. Instead, Saudi Arabia\u2019s crown prince has insisted upon a general shift in strategy which directly affects LIV given its reliance on PIF cash.<\/p>\n

Scott O\u2019Neil, LIV\u2019s chief executive, was publicly bullish during a subsequent tournament but vague about finance post-2026. O\u2019Neil had hoped to convince the PIF to retain faith with LIV. The Wall Street Journal first reported O\u2019Neil will hold meetings with players and staff on Thursday, outlining in detail the PIF reversal and the obvious black hole that will create. O\u2019Neil will hope that frees him up to hold talks with potential investors but the outlook for LIV appears grim.<\/p>\n

Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith are among major winners who are contracted to LIV, having signed deals collectively worth hundreds of millions. Players will inevitably want to know whether they are permitted to walk away from those deals and begin negotiations aimed at a return to the PGA Tour. However, any such talks will inevitably be complicated \u2013 the PGA Tour is not only in an increasingly strong bargaining position but must be seen to apply reasonable sanctions to returning players to appease members who did not switch to LIV.<\/p>\n

Next week, LIV Golf Virginia is due to be staged at Trump National Golf Club north-west of Washington DC. LIV has postponed a planned stop in Louisiana in June. – Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIV Golf executives are poised to confirm to players that Saudi Arabia\u2019s funding of the circuit will cease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,123010,112],"class_list":["post-424339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liv-golf-invitational-series","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}