Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is on the verge of announcing it will withdraw financial support from LIV Golf, the upstart golf circuit it launched four years ago to compete with the PGA Tour, a person familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
The Saudi league splashed into professional golf in 2022, attracting some of the sport’s biggest stars with contracts that exceeded — by tens of millions of dollars — their career earnings with more established circuits like the American-run PGA Tour.
The move comes as Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund announced a new five-year strategy on Wednesday, with the fund’s governor saying it would slow down some of its biggest projects as it focuses on “increasing the efficiency of investments.”
Saudi officials have said that the oil-rich kingdom is reevaluating its priorities amid mounting financial pressures, including the cost of its pledges to host the World Expo in 2030 and the men’s soccer World Cup in 2034.
On Wednesday, Sergio Garcia, a LIV player who won the Masters Tournament in 2017, suggested the league’s athletes were in the dark about its fate, even as speculation swirled online about its future.