But Malinauskas and Champion are discovering the downside to doing business with an organisation that serves as a handy distraction from the Saudi government\u2019s propensity to murder journalists and dissenters. Funded exclusively by Saudi Arabia\u2019s Public Investment Fund (PIF) since its formation in 2021, LIV Golf is unlikely to survive PIF\u2019s April announcement of a sparkling new five-year investment strategy geared toward \u201csustained value creation, with a strengthened focus on maximising impact, raising the efficiency of investments, and applying the highest standards of governance, transparency and institutional excellence\u201d. <\/p>\n
Apparently deciding a bunch of squabbling golfers and a couple of viral hole-in-ones are not sufficient return on a $7.3 billon investment in the breakaway league to date, PIF will withdraw all funding at the conclusion of the 2026 season<\/a> in August, and despite LIV Golf\u2019s brave announcement it is forming a new independent board to \u201csecure other long-term investors\u201d, one suspects replacing PIF\u2019s lazy $1 billion a year will prove a challenge.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tRelated Article Block Placeholder<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tArticle ID: 1248091\n\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t Malinauskas bristled at those who suggested SA\u2019s role in LIV Golf made it an undignified patsy in the Saudis\u2019 sportswashing agenda, insisting the partnership was<\/a> \u201cconsistent with a value system that every Australian holds dear\u201d and that critics were hypocrites if they condemned the Saudis\u2019 golf subsidiary while watching Netflix or attending Live Nation concerts, organisations in which the PIF holds minority stakes. He rammed a takeover bill of the North Adelaide Golf Course through parliament<\/a> while the lord mayor was out of the country and handed his new BFF and then LIV CEO Greg Norman the lucrative contract to remodel the course without the inconvenience of having to tender \u2014 both abrogations of process necessary, we were told, to have LIV in its new home by 2028.\u00a0 Six hundred trees would fall, sections of Adelaide\u2019s prized parklands would be commercialised, and famed restaurants would be forced to close<\/a> in pursuit of the party premier\u2019s dream of LIV in the heart of the city, all of which was explicitly justified by an extension of the LIV Golf contract until 2031.\u00a0 It \u201csets us up for the future\u201d, hyped Malinauskas in February last year<\/a>, as \u201cwe didn\u2019t want to invest heavily in North Adelaide and face the prospect of (LIV) being lost from South Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n With that prospect now a reality, whither the North Adelaide Golf Course upgrade and SA taxpayers\u2019 $45 million?\u00a0 Malinauskas is attempting to erase his 2025 comments from history and last week touted the expensive works as a worthy investment in public sporting infrastructure, similar to the improvements to the suburban football fields in camera-friendly locales instrumental to the success of the wildly popular AFL Gather Round.\u00a0<\/p>\n But while they both demonstrate the government\u2019s fondness for using copious amounts of public money to entice wealthy sporting organisations of dubious ethics to take SA seriously, an unnecessary and controversial upgrade to an already excellent golf course that comes with collateral damage to Adelaide\u2019s famed parklands cannot be sold in the same way as the arguable over-investment in local sports facilities that are used by community clubs in the 51 weeks of the year the AFL isn\u2019t there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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