Saudi Arabia is reportedly set to pull its multi-billion dollar investment from the LIV Golf tour at the end of the current season, according to British media. Sources informed the BBC that the breakaway golf tour is expected to unveil a \u201cnew strategic plan\u201d on Thursday and will seek new financial investors. Sky Sports News reported that LIV Golf’s chairman, Yasir al-Rumayyan, is anticipated to resign as part of this announcement. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), of which Rumayyan is the governor, has injected over $5 billion into the competition since its inception in 2021. The PIF’s significant investment in LIV Golf, aimed at rivaling the PGA Tour, was part of a broader strategy to enhance the kingdom’s presence in sports and entertainment, aligning with its efforts to diversify the economy beyond oil. However, since its establishment, the tour has incurred losses exceeding $1.1 billion outside the US, with likely several billions more in the US. Prominent golfers such as Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, and Cameron Smith compete on the tour. Even prior to the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, several ambitious Saudi projects were either being canceled or significantly scaled back. In December, the kingdom’s finance minister, Mohammed al-Jadaan, stated that Saudi Arabia had \u201cno ego\u201d preventing it from reassessing projects. Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia halted construction of the Mukaab, a colossal cube-shaped structure planned for downtown Riyadh. The kingdom also shelved proposals for a desert ski resort and a large dam intended for an artificial lake.<\/p>\n
**Snooker and Opera Projects Canceled**<\/p>\n
In other sports news, the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters has been canceled after only two editions, despite an initial 10-year agreement with the World Snooker Tour. The snooker tour announced earlier this week, \u201cFollowing constructive discussions between The Saudi Billiard and Snooker Federation and Matchroom after the conclusion of the 2025 editions, it has been mutually agreed not to proceed with future editions of the World Pool Championship and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.\u201d Separately, Saudi Arabia withdrew from a $200 million agreement to support New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House, citing economic setbacks incurred from the war, as reported by The New York Times last week. Peter Gelb, the Met Opera’s general manager, informed the NYT that the kingdom attributed its decision to economic damage to the country caused by the Iran war and the blockade of oil transiting the Strait of Hormuz. \u201cThey are only pursuing essential projects,\u201d Gelb told the NYT, recalling his discussion with Saudi officials. He added that the Met financing deal \u201cfalls outside what is essential.\u201d Rumayyan told Al Arabiya Business on Wednesday that the conflict with Iran was influencing PIF’s calculations, stating that \u201cthe war would add more pressure to reposition some priorities.\u201d Rumayyan confirmed for the first time that a 170km straight-line city, initially envisioned as part of the larger Neom development, is no longer a priority. \u201cThere are directives for Neom to reprioritize. Everyone thinks The Line *is* Neom, but The Line is just one project within Neom,\u201d he stated. \u201cIs it necessary to have The Line by 2030? I think no. It’s good to have, but not a must-have,\u201d he added. Severing ties with LIV Golf would align with the kingdom’s strategy to retain more of its sovereign wealth fund cash domestically. The PIF is estimated to be worth $1 trillion. Rumayyan indicated that the PIF aims for 80 percent of its investments to target local projects, with 20 percent deployed internationally, a reduction from a high of 30 percent in recent years.<\/p>\n
#LIVGolf #SaudiArabia #PIF #GolfNews #EconomicDiversification #ProjectCancellations #Neom #SportsInvestment #MiddleEastEconomy #GlobalGolf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saudi Arabia is reportedly set to pull its multi-billion dollar investment from the LIV Golf tour at the end of the current season, according to British media. Sources informed the BBC that the breakaway golf tour is expected to unveil a \u201cnew strategic plan\u201d on Thursday and will seek new financial investors. Sky Sports News […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}