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FootBiz newsletter #159: What PIF's pivot in strategy means for Newcastle United
And the latest on that price gouging competition we call the World Cup
Ed Malyon
April 17, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Wednesday was a fun day in golf media, as reports swirled that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) was about to pull the plug on LIV, the disruptor golf tour that caused a civil war in the sport but has struggled to meaningfully catch on.
Those initial reports were met with silence from LIV, which prompted further digging from a number of outlets who published stories along a similar line. The Telegraph reported an “emergency summit” in New York on Tuesday, the Financial Times saying PIF was “on the verge of cutting support” to the golf tour that it had plunged over $5bn into with very little return.
Eventually some pushback came from LIV, but only as far as claiming they were funded through the end of the season before LIV CEO Scott O’Neil broke his silence with a statement that, once again, wasn’t wholly reassuring.
As their Mexico event began on Thursday morning, Arlo White began the broadcast with a pravda-inspired rebuke of the reporting that, the evidence would suggest, could end up looking foolish in a year’s time.
O’Neil then appeared with White on that broadcast a little later, trying to sound confident but also appearing to admit the league was struggling to make the numbers work.
Arlo White left NBC’s Premier League coverage to join LIV on a big-money deal
“For us, it’s business as usual,” he said
“But if you want to ask me if this business is tough, I would say, ‘absolutely’. If you ask me if we’re managed very, very tightly, I would say, ‘absolutely’. Can this be challenging? ‘Absolutely’.”
He then proceeded to do the usual talk about ‘survival’ that you do when things are going well.
“If I’m a PGA Tour player, I want LIV to survive… Competition is good for business. If I’m a television network, I’d love LIV Golf to survive. It’s good television. If I’m a reporter, it certainly makes the news a little more spicy. If you’re a fan, you want more golf around the world. There is a lot more to gain with LIV Golf here than LIV Golf gone.”
It was unclear who exactly he was trying to convince — in part because nobody watches the broadcasts anyway. In an email to staff, O’Neil said that the season continues as planned, but mentioned nothing beyond that. O’Neil had previously told people LIV was funded until 2032, but by Thursday was only promising funding through the end of the season. Executives at the tour are also known to be seeking life rafts in the shape of jobs elsewhere.
What can’t be denied is that PIF announced their investment strategy for the next five years this week, and it will be looking quite different to how it has for the last few.
PIF will narrow its focus somewhat, trimming investments that aren’t performing and reallocating more capital towards domestic investments than international. Even domestically, immensely expensive ‘giga-projects’ like The Line are being significantly scaled down or scrapped where there is little-to-no prospect of ROI.
Those don’t sound good for LIV, which has simply burnt through cash without being able to establish itself as a product people are willing to pay for. Up-front payments to attract a handful of big names worked, but those initial contracts have expired in some cases, and Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed are among the former PGA stars who this year have let their deal lapse and walked away. The upcoming renewal of Bryson DeChambeau has been seen as a test of the league, but surely now will simply not happen?
Inevitably thoughts also turned to football, though from what we understand there is unlikely to be any major pullback from the world’s biggest sport. Part of that, fairly obviously, is that the kingdom will be hosting the World Cup in 2034. That’s going to require a ton of investment but is a significant national priority.
It has been obvious for a while that some of the more fantastical stadium plans would be scaled back, despite a number of top architects having been contracted, but the investment ahead of the World Cup will remain significant.
Newcastle United is PIF’s biggest pure football investment internationally, bought for £300m+ in 2021, and they have sunk hundreds of millions more into the club since.
Newcastle United is PIF’s biggest non-domestic football investment
PIF’s investment, particularly in transfers, has helped make Newcastle a team that can compete at the top end of the Premier League, qualifying for the Champions League twice under Saudi ownership, but that poses its own problems if that investment were to suddenly disappear. There would be little-to-no way to maintain that without selling players, and ambitious ones like Sandro Tonali (trying to leave) and Anthony Gordon (also trying to leave) could lead a stampede out the door if the club needed to become more sustainable.
The good news for Newcastle fans is it’s very unlikely PIF are going anywhere.
While their Premier League investment has required some serious burn of cash, it remains nowhere near the levels seen in other portfolio companies in PIF’s strategic media and sports bucket, and a fraction of the money incinerated by the LIV Tour. Newcastle could at least be deemed a qualified success — assuming a reasonable enough valuation of £700-750m for the club, PIF might just about break even if they sold, but have shown themselves to be competent stewards regardless — and therefore there is no real concern about the business.
The same can’t be said for the golf tour, and we simply don’t know enough about their endeavours in boxing to pass comment but Saudi investors also pulled out of the planned flag football league and sold their first Pro League club, Al-Hilal, this week.
What has been known at Newcastle for a while, though, is that PIF won’t be around forever. A FootBiz source at the club told us earlier this year that what happens with the stadium project is likely to be the most obvious sign of their medium-to-long-term intentions. Particularly after this week’s pivot.
In general, though, investors with plenty of dry powder (which PIF very much still qualifies as) like to build new facilities and they have put a lot of work into planning a new training ground and stadium. The £200m training ground project appears to be further along than the stadium one, where the presence of bats has caused issues for the preferred site at Leazes Park, but our source suggests the amount of priority being given to the stadium issue suggests PIF are very committed to seeing this through.
Despite a lot of bluster on Thursday, the same probably can’t be said for the LIV Tour.
