If a Prince Murders a Journalist, That’s Not a Hiccup
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side"
In the end, Saudi Arabia played Kushner, Trump and his other American acolytes for suckers.
By Nicholas Kristof Opinion Columnist Oct. 13, 2018
[...]
Frankly, it’s a disgrace that Trump administration officials and American business tycoons enabled and applauded M.B.S. as he imprisoned business executives, kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister, rashly created a crisis with Qatar, and went to war in Yemen to create what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis there. Some eight million Yemenis on the edge of starvation there don’t share this bizarre view that M.B.S. is a magnificent reformer.
Two princes: Kushner now faces a reckoning for Trump’s bet on the heir to the Saudi throne
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side"
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, visits the royal court in Riyadh during Trump’s May 2017 trip to Saudi Arabia. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
[Angelic in appearance, isn't he. So clean cut. Sooo nice.]
By Philip Rucker , Carol D. Leonnig and Anne Gearan October 14 at 9:35 PM
When President Trump chose Riyadh to make his debut on the world stage last year, he was placing a bet on Saudi Arabia, which serenaded him with military bands, dazzled him with a flyover of fighter jets and regaled him with a traditional sword dance.
[...]
One senior U.S. intelligence official said that Kushner has come under the influence of Mohammed’s simplistic view of power dynamics in the Middle East. “MBS has an elevator pitch,” this official said, that Kushner has bought into: Iran is the main enemy and the single obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East.
The reality is far more complicated. But this official said Kushner has appeared uninterested in studying the nuances of security dilemmas in the region and has skipped some intelligence briefings before some high-stakes negotiations.
Kushner sold Trump and administration colleagues on the idea that Mohammed, like Kushner, was a reformer looking to shake up old alliances and break up corrupt power blocs within his country. Kushner privately argued for months last year that Mohammed would be key to crafting a Middle East peace plan, arguing that, with the prince’s blessing, much of the Arab world would follow, according to people with knowledge of the internal deliberations.
Kushner persuaded Trump to make Saudi Arabia his first foreign visit as president against the initial objections of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who as ExxonMobil’s chief executive had extensive experience negotiating with the Saudis and other Arab states. “It was their premier disagreement,” said the Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and others in the U.S. government were skeptical of Mohammed’s follow-through and of Saudi promises to help the United States counter Iran’s influence and destroy the Islamic State, according to the people familiar with the deliberations, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them to reporters.
Trump put Kushner in charge of drafting a peace proposal for Israel and the Palestinians both because of Kushner’s long ties to Israel and because his authority as a Trump family member would be readily understood in Arab family dynasties, such as the one in Saudi Arabia.
In July, however, the Saudis delivered a setback. After the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, King Salman publicly rejected Kushner’s peace plan and reassured the Palestinians that Saudi Arabia would not make the concessions that the United States sought for Israel. The plan stalled, and Kushner was startled and angry at the Saudi response, according to diplomats familiar with his reaction.
Trump is expected to soon present a reworked package, but it is not clear whether the Saudis will provide the diplomatic backing and financial support that Kushner has sought.
“It all smacks of a massive naivete on his part that he could sit down with MBS and figure out Middle East peace and a broader framework” involving Arab states that want a durable solution, said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.
The administration voiced little public criticism when Mohammed seemed to overstep with the detention last fall of leading Saudi business executives and a bizarre episode involving what may have been the brief kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister, nor when the Saudi crown prince picked a diplomatic fight this year with Canada, a close U.S. ally.
In general, Trump’s critics have said, the president’s admiration for strongmen and his reluctance to champion human rights and democracy make authoritarian leaders feel empowered because they do not fear U.S. retaliation.
“The Jared-MBS relationship revolves around the Middle East peace process, and the hope that Jared had for the Israeli-Palestinian issue,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and former senior State Department official who is now policy director at the Middle East Institute, which has hosted Khashoggi.
But, Feierstein said, “MBS for his own reasons has played along and given the administration reason to believe that the Saudis will do more than I believe they ever will.”
Josh Dawsey and Shane Harris contributed to this report.
Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz flew back to Riyadh from London on Tuesday, according to three Saudi sources close to the prince cited by The New York Times, in what some analysts are calling a potential challenge to the authority of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman .. https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/people/mohammed-bin-salman.html .
Sources told the Times bin Abdulaziz arrived in the Saudi capital around 01:30 on Tuesday (22:30 GMT on Monday) and was warmly received by his nephew, the crown prince, who greeted him at the airport.
London-based Middle East Eye also reported bin Abdulaziz's return, quoting a source close to the prince as saying his return is intended to shake up the kingdom's leadership.
"The prince wants to play a role to make these changes, which means either he himself will play a major role in any new arrangement or to help choose an alternative to MBS," the source was cited as saying.
David Hearst, editor-in-chief of the Middle East Eye, said that bin Abdulaziz's arrival is likely to cause some discomfort for the crown prince.
"Mohammed bin Salman has become a focus of the [royal] family's discontent, a symbol of it. Prince Ahmad had always made his objection to the crown prince known.
"He was one of the three members on the allegiance council who did not vote for him. He's made other public signs of his disapproval," Hearst said.
One of the most senior members of the royal family, bin Abdulaziz - who has been living in the United Kingdom .. https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/united-kingdom.html - is said to have agreed to return to Riyadh only after receiving security assurances from the UK and United States.
Reports say the prince had been afraid to return after publicly challenging bin Salman on several occasions.
The supposed return comes almost a month after Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2.
Eighteen men have been arrested in Saudi Arabia in connection with the murder, which is thought to have been ordered by top-level Saudi officials. Investigations are ongoing.
Who is Prince Ahmad?
Bin Abdulaziz has publicly criticised bin Salman on several occasions [File: Fahad Shadeed/Reuters]
The younger brother of King Salman, bin Abdulaziz, now in his 70s, is one of the most senior members of the Saudi royal family. His position as the king's brother lends him a special importance in the kingdom.
He and the king are the last remaining members of the powerful "Sudairi seven", a bloc comprised of the seven sons of King Abdul Aziz - considered the kingdom's modern founder - and his favourite wife Hussa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi. The brothers banded together to ensure the throne and important ministries passed between them and stayed out of the reach of the king's dozens of other sons.
Bin Abdulaziz served as deputy interior minister for decades and briefly as interior minister in 2012, but has been in retirement since then, spending most of his time in London.
Mahjoob Zweiri, director of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, said the apparent arrival of bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh could signal a change at the top of the Saudi leadership.
"I think the gesture means there is a change coming some time soon," he told Al Jazeera. "Let's not forget there is also a level of anger at the behaviour of Mohammed bin Salman when it comes to the region and inside Saudi Arabia. There are forces inside Saudi Arabia that are not happy with what's happening."
Bin Abdulaziz caused controversy in September when a video of him speaking to protesters in London sparked concerns about his loyalty to bin Salman.
The nearly two-minute clip appeared to show him asking demonstrators protesting the kingdom's role in the war in Yemen why they were complaining to him instead of the king and crown prince. He also said he hoped that wars in Yemen and elsewhere would stop as soon as possible.
Shortly afterwards, bin Abdulaziz issued a brief official statement saying that his comments were intended to clarify that "the king and crown prince are responsible for the state and its decisions".
What does this mean for the Khashoggi case?
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Istanbul, said the timing of bin Abdulaziz's return - which has not been officially confirmed by Riyadh - is significant.
It comes at a time when Saudi Arabia has come under international pressure to come clean on exactly what happened inside its consulate and to come clean on who ordered that killing, the Al Jazeera correspondent said.
"... many in the international community believe that order was given by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman."
"What is happening inside the royal family in the kingdom, it is hard to say for the time being but there is no doubt that this crisis could have repercussions for the Saudi royal family, for Saudi Arabia.
"Is something being worked out behind the scenes that will satisfy all parties? ... now there seem to be attempts to contain this crisis," she said.
Zweiri from Qatar University said bin Abdulaziz's reported return is a direct consequence of Khashoggi's killing, as well as international players' desire to ensure the kingdom's stability.
"There was serious pressure on the ruling family in Saudi Arabia, on the crown prince himself, there is a serious critique to his foreign policy and his political behaviour and it's obvious that the UK and the United States have decided to have a serious move," he told Al Jazeera.
"I think they want to move for the sake of protecting their national interests in the region because Saudi Arabia is, for them, an important player in the Middle East region," he said. "They have to choose whether the future of Saudi Arabia is collaboration with the international community or keeping Mohammed bin Salman".
VIDEO - Inside Story - Can Saudi Arabia get away with murder?
Women campaigning for right to drive arrested in Saudi Arabia
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side "What Jamal Khashoggi Story Says About US Leadership | Morning Joe | MSNBC""
Issued on: 19/05/2018 - 18:02Modified: 20/05/2018 - 10:42
Fayez Nureldine / AFP | Saudi women check out cars at an automotive exhibition for women in the Saudi capital Riyadh on May 13, 2018.
Text by: NEWS WIRES
International rights groups have condemned the arrests this week of at least seven prominent Saudi Arabian women's rights activists who previously campaigned for the right to drive, which the conservative kingdom is set to grant from next month.
The decision to end a decades-old ban on women driving cars has been hailed as proof of a new progressive trend under reform-minded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on the authorities to release the detainees, identifying six of them as Eman al-Nafjan, Lujain al-Hathloul, Aziz al-Yousef, Aisha al-Manea, Ibrahim Modeimigh and Mohammed al-Rabea. Some are women, and others are men who have campaigned for women’s rights.
Authorities said in an overnight statement that they were still identifying others allegedly involved in activities that “encroach on religious and national constants”, and fellow activists said others had been arrested but the total number was not immediately clear.
“It appears the only ‘crime’ these activists committed was wanting women to drive before Mohammed bin Salman did,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
Despite small icing-steps the cruelty towards women in Saudi Arabia continues.
Saudi Arabia Granted Women the Right to Drive. A Year on, It’s Still Complicated.
Hessah Alajaji in her car last year, hours before Saudi Arabia’s ban on women drivers officially lifted. Tasneem Alsultan for The New York Times
By Megan Specia June 24, 2019
Saudi Arabia granted women the right to drive one year ago .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/world/middleeast/saudi-women-drivers.html , a historic move that cracked open a window to new freedoms for women who have long lived under repressive laws. The measure was enacted by the country’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who also eased other restrictions on women, leading some to hail him as a feminist reformer.
And some of the very activists who fought for their rights have been languishing behind bars. Here’s what to know a year after the ban on female drivers was lifted.
Tens of thousands of Saudi women are driving.
Officials say they have issued tens of thousands of driver’s licenses to Saudi women since last year. A few driving schools catering to women have popped up and dozens of women have shared celebratory photos with their licenses in hand.
The ban was lifted amid a wide-scale public relations push, but the Saudi government has released few hard figures about the growth of female driving in the country. The Saudi government did not respond to requests for updated figures on the number of women driving and the number of driving schools for them, and calls to the General Department of Traffic went unanswered.
Women’s rights activists are still being detained.
Human rights groups say that while it is important to celebrate the milestone for female drivers, these activists should not be forgotten.
Yahya Assiri, the director ALQST, a human rights group, said in a statement that rather than being a cause for celebration, “this anniversary is unfortunately instead a sad and timely reminder that the many women who fought so bravely for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, including the right to drive itself, are still being punished for their activism.”
Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent figure in the push to allow women to drive, was detained in May 2018 and is still behind bars. Her sister Lina al-Hathloul, who lives in Belgium, said that her trial finally began in Riyadh this March, though a later hearing was abruptly postponed.
Among the charges against Ms. al-Hathloul are that she sought to undermine the security of the kingdom, which her sister said stemmed from Ms. al-Hathloul’s contacts with foreign journalists, and accusations that she applied for a job at the United Nations.
“I would like people to remember that these reforms wouldn’t have happened if Loujain and the others like her didn’t put their lives in danger,” Lina al-Hathloul said.
Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent figure in the push to allow women to drive, filmed herself at the wheel in 2014. Loujain Al-Hathloul/Loujain al-Hathloul, via Associated Press
“Driving is a really good thing for Saudi women,” she added. “But on the other hand, if they stop the reformers and put them in jail and torture them, we question the good of the reforms.”
Saudi women still face strict guardianship laws.
Some activists detained last year were also campaigning for an end to Saudi Arabia’s guardianship laws, which have long kept women out of public life.
Under the system, a girl’s father is her legal guardian; once a woman is married, her husband becomes her guardian. If her husband dies, guardianship transfers to her son or another male family member. A woman who goes against her guardian’s wishes can be arrested on charges of disobedience.
Saudi women do not need their guardian’s approval to get a driver’s license, but they do need permission to marry, enroll in school and university, and apply for a passport.
Rights groups have denounced a Saudi-led coalition’s continued war in Yemen, which has left the country in a humanitarian crisis .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-war-yemen.html . Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the trial of a Saudi religious reformist thinker, Hassan Farhan al-Maliki, drawing more condemnation. Michael Page, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said that in order to truly reform, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family needed to allow for freedom of expression.
“Mohammed bin Salman has consistently pledged to support a more ‘moderate’ version of Islam,” he said, “while his country maintains a prosecution service that seeks the death penalty against religious reformers for expressing their peaceful ideas.”
As all the 4 Corners videos it's highly recommended. I saw it only last night. Below is one who failed to gain her freedom.
Saudi woman seeking asylum in Australia returned to Saudi Arabia Katie Paul
April 13, 2017 / 12:15 AM / 3 years ago
RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi woman claiming she sought asylum in Australia was stopped on a layover in the Philippines and returned to Riyadh on Wednesday.
Dina Ali Lasloom said in self-recorded videos the Philippine authorities had held her at the Manila airport and confiscated her passport. The videos circulated widely on social media over the last two days.
“My name is Dina Ali and I’m a Saudi woman who fled Saudi Arabia to Australia to seek asylum,” she said in one video, adding she feared violence from any relatives who came to bring her back home.
“Please help me. I’m recording this video to help me and know that I’m real and I’m here.”
The woman did not say why she sought refuge abroad and the authenticity of the videos could not immediately be verified.
The Saudi embassy in Manila issued a statement on Wednesday calling the case a “family matter” and added without elaborating that she had “returned with her relatives to the homeland.”
Philippine authorities did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
In Saudi Arabia, women are legally subject to a male guardian, who must give his approval for basic decisions on education, marriage, travel and even medical treatment.
Saudi authorities have over the last decade granted new opportunities for women to study and work. But women are still barred from driving and must obey a strict dress code requiring that they wear loose robes when in public.
CARRIED ONTO FLIGHT
Meagan Khan, a Canadian tourist, told The Australian newspaper after landing in Bali that she had allowed Ali to use her phone to post the videos on Twitter.
Ali began to cry when two men whom she identified as relatives arrived at the Manila airport, Khan told the paper.
Saudi activists said Ali was forced onto a Saudi Arabia Airlines flight from Manila to Riyadh on Tuesday night.
She did not emerge at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh after the flight landed early Wednesday morning, but multiple passengers told Reuters they had seen a woman being carried onto the plane screaming.
“I heard a lady screaming from upstairs. Then I saw two or three men carrying her. They weren’t Filipino. They looked Arab,” said one Filipino woman, who declined to give her name.
A rare gathering of about 10 Saudi activists appeared in the arrivals area of the Riyadh airport around midnight on Wednesday, after a hashtag began circulating on Twitter urging people to “receive Dina at the airport.”
One of them, a 23-year-old medical student named Alaa Alanazi, appeared to have been detained after approaching airport security about the case.
Her sister, Nada, said airport officials told her Alanazi had been sent to a police station in central Riyadh, but said she was unable to confirm her sister’s whereabouts.
Reuters could not immediately reach security officials for comment.
Saudi authorities brook little public dissent and frequently detain activists on charges of undermining social cohesion and participating in demonstrations.
Report: These 14 countries allow journalists to be killed with impunity
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side "What Jamal Khashoggi Story Says About US Leadership | Morning Joe | MSNBC" "
For its report, CPJ examined the murder of journalists between Sept. 1, 2008, and August 31, 2018. Countries with five or more unsolved cases made the index. According to CPJ, it “defines murder as a deliberate attack against a specific journalist in relation to the victim's work.”
The majority of the victims were local journalists.
“In the past decade, at least 324 journalists have been silenced through murder worldwide and in 85 percent of these cases, no perpetrators have been convicted,” the report states. “It is an emboldening message to those who seek to censor and control the media through violence.”
In this year’s list, the ratings got worse in Syria, Mexico, Brazil and India. They improved in Somalia, Iraq, South Sudan, Philippines, Pakistan, Russia and Nigeria. Both Afghanistan and Colombia made the list this year and not last.
Here are the 14 countries that made this year’s list. The list, according to CPJ, calculates the impunity rating based on unsolved murders in the past 10 years as a percentage of that country’s population:
* Somalia: 25 unsolved cases
* Syria: 18 unsolved cases
* Iraq: 25 unsolved cases
* South Sudan: 5 unsolved cases
* Philippines: 40 unsolved cases
* Afghanistan: 11 unsolved cases
* Mexico: 26 unsolved cases
* Colombia: 5 unsolved cases
* Pakistan: 18 unsolved cases
* Brazil: 17 unsolved cases
* Russia: 8 unsolved cases
* Bangladesh: 7 unsolved cases
* Nigeria: 5 unsolved cases
* India: 18 unsolved cases
CPJ and the Freedom of the Press Foundation also track press freedoms in the United States .. https://pressfreedomtracker.us/ .. This year, it reports that six journalists have been arrested, 40 attacked, five killed and 18 subpoenaed.
Golfer Greg Norman gets closer to murderers of Jamal Khashoggi. Yep. In getting into business with Saudi Arabia he is unarguably doing that.
PGA Tour and Greg Norman’s LIV Golf Speed Towards Legal Collision Course
"After journalist vanishes, focus shifts to young prince’s ‘dark’ and bullying side "What Jamal Khashoggi Story Says About US Leadership | Morning Joe | MSNBC""
By Michael McCann, Jim Gorant May 13, 2022 12:01am
[A norman image i don't feel like touching] - Will Greg Norman take the PGA Tour to court? AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack
The denials, PGA Tour executive Tyler Dennis wrote, were made “in accordance with the PGA Tour Tournament regulations” and “in the best interest of the PGA Tour and its players.” The action follows weeks of public sparring involving Norman and Monahan.
In a statement, Norman blasted the Tour’s stance, saying the Tour “seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf, unless it’s exclusively in a PGA Tour tournament.” He also called the denials “anti-golfer, anti-fan, and anti-competitive.” Norman further suggested the Tour is hypocritical in operating as a nonprofit with a mission to promote the common interests of golfers.
And after weeks of rumors, at least a few of those golfers have come out definitively as future LIV participants. During an on-camera argument with a rules official at the Wells Fargo Championship on May 4, Sergio Garcia: “I can’t wait to leave this tour,” and, “Just a couple more weeks until I don’t have to deal with [this] anymore.” (The Tour later acknowledged that Garcia was right in challenging the ruling.) And after Norman said LIV had two former World No. 1 players signed up, Martin Kaymer admitted he was one of them. Kaymer, 37, was No. 1 for eight weeks in 2011 and is currently 195.
Phil Mickelson, who was for a long time the most enthusiastic supporter of the rival series, remains in a self-imposed timeout after quotes in which he brushed aside the human rights record of Saudi Arabia .. https://www.sportico.com/t/saudi-arabia/ .. (the chief financial backer of LIV) in favor of “leverage” over the Tour. He’s registered for next week’s PGA Championship and sought a release for LIV London, but when and where he’ll emerge remains a mystery.
When pressed on the issue of Saudi atrocities, including the murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi and the public beheading of 81 people in March, Norman said, “We all make mistakes,” and that “I heard about it and I just kept moving on.”The comments went viral, leaving LIV backpedaling later in the day and players to once again consider what they’re signing up for if they join LIV.
[Insert: That was one of your worst swings ever, Greg. Money talks though, eh.]
Those Tour members who do move forward with Norman and friends constitute one of the parties that may take legal action, although there are several possibilities, each with its own set of defenses.
Denied players have standing to sue the Tour and demand temporary restraining orders to allow them to play. One likely claim would fall under antitrust law. The Tour would be portrayed as a “monopsony” in that it has dominance over the industry and has now prevented elite golfers from selling their services to a similar and potentially competitive buyer (i.e., LIV).
The Tour’s affiliated businesses, such as sponsors and partner courses and tournaments, could be labeled conspirators. To that end, the players might urge the U.S. Justice Department to take a close look at the Tour’s business practices. In recent years, the Justice Department has aggressively ..https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/economy/wages-antitrust-law-us.html .. sought to prevent employers from constraining workers’ economic opportunities.
Antitrust claims are strengthened if the challenged restraint is shown to harm consumers, including by raising prices or diminishing choices. Here, players could insist that golf fans are deprived of opportunities to watch other tournaments that feature elite players in a distinct format (three days of team play vs. four days of individual stroke play).
Players could further maintain that the Tour’s interpretation of its own rules is “arbitrary and capricious,” the legal standard commonly applied to a private organization’s application of rules. Players could maintain the Tour has ordinarily granted releases and its departure from that practice reflects non-meritorious reasons.
Players also can underscore the nature of their contractual relationship to the Tour. They are independent contractors. Players in the major sports leagues, in contrast, are employees and protected by unions, who negotiate CBAs on their behalf. Courts and lawmakers have begun to scrutinize .. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/economy/wages-antitrust-law-us.html .. restrictions placed on independent contractors more strictly.
LIV, meanwhile, may bring its own claims against the Tour.
The rival tour could sue under antitrust law and depict the Tour as using monopoly power to prevent competition. Like the players, LIV could insist that golf fans suffer a diminished market for their fandom—and dollars—when the Tour blocks players from playing elsewhere. LIV might also assert that the Tour has interfered with prospective contractual relations between LIV and players, who want to bargain with LIV but run the risk of Tour penalty, including possible suspension or even loss of membership.
The Tour’s willingness to deny requests in spite of the risk of litigation reflects its confidence in rebutting any claims. The most persuasive defense is that players, as Tour members, contractually agree to follow Tour rules and authorize the Tour to enforce its rules.
One rule in the player handbook explicitly states that “by participating in cosponsored, coordinated or approved golf tournaments, acknowledges the right and authority of the PGA Tour Policy Board [and] the Commissioner to (i) fine and suspend the member from tournament play, and/ or (ii) fine and permanently bar the member from play in PGA Tour cosponsored, approved or coordinated tournaments for violation of the tournament regulations.” This language accords the Tour substantial discretion. Other provisions similarly extend authority to the Tour to prohibit conduct detrimental to the league.
Courts are also deferential to decision-making by pro leagues and, more generally, private associations on issues of membership and application of internal rules. The tour denying requests does not raise discrimination concerns (for example, there’s no indication the denials are motivated by race or ethnicity) and players, who are adults, contractually assented to Tour discretion. The denials are also arguably reasonable since the SGL’s London event is scheduled for the same week as the RBC Canadian Open.
The Tour could further parry claims by referring to industry data. The Tour would describe the global marketplace for elite golfers as competitive, with affiliated tours already being held across the globe. Both golfers and fans, the Tour could insist, enjoy choice irrespective of LIV. The Tour might also warn that LIV could fragment the golf industry, eroding the Tour’s long-standing order—which golf fans value—and putting individual PGA tournaments at risk of being canceled.
As to deflecting claims by LIV, the Tour could point out that nothing stops a player from quitting the Tour and signing with LIV, and stress that a sports league denying its players from playing in a rival league is hardly unusual. It is a common practice that courts have found lawful. Nearly 50 years ago, the U.S. Tennis Association defeated .. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/354/1241/1380461/ .. an antitrust lawsuit after it denied players the opportunity to play in a rival league. The court ruled the ban enhanced rather than impaired competition by promoting an orderly schedule of tournaments—a point the Tour could make.
Lastly, while Norman portrays the Tour as anti-competitive, he has acknowledged in recent interviews that LIV could also minimize opportunities for players and consumers.Although he’s defined 2022 and 2023 as “baiter” years to draw players into the LIV fold (meaning players can play sporadically if they choose), he’s implied that in 2024 they’ll have to sign a contract obligating them to the entire LIV schedule.
Likewise, the LIV format envisions permanent teams that will in part be owned by the players and potentially feature 18 or more events a year. Presumably LIV would allow its players to appear on other tours during its off weeks, but PGA Tour attorneys could insist this format undercut LIV’s central thesis, since LIV’s plans would eventually lock players in for a significant number of weeks per year.
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