9/11 Families United: LIV Golf Never Recovered From Being Exposed as Saudi Sportswashing

As the Saudi-backed LIV Golf continues to unravel, 9/11 Families United issued a reminder that LIV was never anything more than a sportswashing enterprise intended to obscure the central role Saudi citizens and institutions played in the September 11 Attacks.

“LIV was never about golf. It was about distraction – and laundering reputation without admitting what the Saudis had done,” said Terry Strada, National Chair of 9/11 Families United. “9/11 families quickly opposed the Saudi’s sportswashing enterprise from LIV’s inception, including protesting at golf courses and advertising in Times Square. When it looked like the PGA Tour was going to be rolled by the Saudis, the 9/11 families were there to back them up. LIV never recovered.” 

In 2022, 9/11 Families United cautioned the first American golfers who chose to align themselves with LIV Golf, as well as tournament organizers, corporate sponsors and media partners that their actions constituted a betrayal of their fellow Americans, and urged them to reconsider participation in a Saudi-funded sportswashing effort. The media then began asking questions of LIV leadership, and the golfers who had taken the Saudi money were forced to address Saudi Arabia’s history with 9/11. 

When the PGA Tour moved toward a deal that would elevate the Saudi role in professional golf, 9/11 Families United pushed for federal scrutiny of the PGA–LIV pact, including requests for investigations into potential Foreign Agents Registration Act violations by consultants and lobbyists working on LIV’s behalf. In 2023, as the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations examined the planned Saudi takeover of professional golf, 9/11 Families United ensured the 9/11 community’s perspective was formally entered into the record. That same period included a new public-facing advertising campaign in Times Square highlighting Saudi sportswashing and calling attention to the Kingdom’s involvement in the 9/11 Attacks. 

LIV Golf faced immediate and lasting consequences. Players who joined the tour were dogged by questions about morality and accountability at every press conference and public appearance. Sponsors kept their distance. Television ratings lagged. Fans rejected the manufactured spectacle. The tour became synonymous with controversy and shame. The underlying reality exposed by the 9/11 community could not be undone.

“Money can buy access. It can buy endorsements. It can buy influence,” Strada said. “But it cannot buy legitimacy, and it cannot buy the public’s forgiveness. Until the Kingdom reckons with its history, we will keep exposing Saudi efforts to obscure its record and evade accountability for its role in the 9/11 Attacks.”

That effort includes the pursuit of justice in federal court. After a year-long review of a previously hidden cache of evidence, Judge George B. Daniels of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in August that the families of September 11 victims had presented sufficient evidence of direct involvement by Saudi government officials and institutions to proceed to trial. Rather than confront that evidence before a jury, Saudi Arabia has filed an appeal seeking to delay the case, which is expected to be argued as the country approaches the 25th anniversary of the attacks.

About 9/11 Families United: 

9/11 Families United is an organization consisting of family members of those murdered in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as many of those who survived, were injured in or sickened from the attacks, a community that numbers well over 10,000.  More information is at www.911familiesunited.org