KEVIN MCCALLUM: We’re just golfers, not politicians

The SportsWashing WhatsApp group would have pinged like a broken slot machine this week with the message: “PGA has joined the group using the merger invitation.”

It is a runaway snowball of a group, picking up size and speed as it rolls on and on. Members include Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Bryson DeChambeau, Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson, Lionel Messi, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Newcastle United, Jay Monahan, David Beckham, Gianni Infantino, Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen and Pitso Mosimane. All of them have one thing in common, they are there for the money, honey. Humans rights bite, man. 

But let’s ask DeChambeau, the Texan who is called The Scientist for the meticulous and analytical manner in which he approaches his golf if not his sense of morality. As a player on the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) LIV show, he was interviewed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about the shock merger-alignment-takeover between the PIF and the PGA. Collins was in no mood to repeat the disaster of her town hall event with Donald Trump, which descended into a “spectacle of lies”, and went in studs up.

“They’re [Saudi Arabia] accused of financing terrorism,” said Collins. “They’re also accused of killing Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi. How do you feel knowing that is where the money is backed by?”

No prizes for guessing the answer, but here it is in all its nothing-less glory.

“I mean look, it’s unfortunate what has happened but that is not something I can necessarily speak on because I’m a golfer. What I can say is that, what they’re trying to do, what they’re trying to work on is be better allies, because we are allies with them. I’m not going to get into the politics of it, I’m not specialised in it. But what I can say is they’re trying to do good for the world and showcase themselves in a light that hasn’t been seen in a while. Nobody is perfect but we’re all trying to improve in life.”

I’m just a golfer. Where have we heard that before? 

Lee Westwood, 2022: “The questions on the Saudi government and their policies are unanswerable,” he told Golf Digest. “My response is just to try and not answer them. I’m not a politician; I’m a golfer. But I do know that sport can be used as change for good.”

Shane Lowry, before playing in the Saudi International in 2022: “Look, obviously there’s no hiding from the people writing about this tournament or what they’re saying about us going to play, but at the end of the day for me, I’m not a politician, I’m a professional golfer.”

Justin Rose looking forward to playing in the Saudi International in 2019: “I’m not a politician, I’m a pro golfer. There’s other reasons to go play it. It’s a good field, there’s going to be a lot of world ranking points to play for, by all accounts it’s a good golf course and it will be an experience to experience Saudi Arabia.” 

As Marina Hyde wrote in the Guardian in 2019: “Warning: the Saudi Arabia experience can vary according to user.” It varied for Khashoggi, who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, a few months before Rose remembered he was just a professional golfer. 

It varies for many others: Amnesty International’s report on Saudi in 2022 reports abuses of “freedom of expression and association”, migrant labour abuse, as well as the fact that the “country’s first Personal Status Law came into effect, codifying male guardianship and discrimination against women”. 

Why did Jay Monahan, commissioner of the PGA, strike this deal under cover, speaking to no-one, knowing he would come out of it as a hypocrite? Money, billions of dollars of it, and an end to the lawsuits. But, mostly the money. Why did the PIF go for it? Because this was what they have wanted all along, to own world golf, to present Saudi Arabia as a shiny, happy place.

As Ben Freeman, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the Guardian: “You can promote sports in your country without buying out one of the most prestigious global sports brands. This is unmistakably a sportswashing power grab. And their goal is to normalise Saudi Arabia on the international stage.

“At the end of the day, when people across the globe think about Saudi Arabia, their government doesn’t want them thinking about Jamal Khashoggi. It doesn’t want people thinking about the atrocities that they committed in the Yemen war. It doesn’t want them thinking about their terrible human rights record at home. They want them thinking about things like professional golf.”

It wants them thinking about golfers who are just golfers and football coaches who are just football coaches, and who are never politicians nor, apparently, human beings with a sense of what they stand for.