"They're making major moves in boxing; there's a lot of major fights being lined up in boxing over the next year," he said.
"They're becoming powerbrokers in football, to a large extent, with a lot of clubs coming under Saudi ownership including Newcastle United."A lot of sports will now look at this, and look at the money, and rather than see it as a warning they will look at it as an opportunity"."It does raise serious questions for sport across the board, how much do they want to get in bed with Saudi?" he said.
"Just one example: a woman called Salma al-Shehab - she was sentenced to 34 years because of tweets and retweets [on] human rights issues - including tweets on women's rights to drive cars."People who defend Saudi's involvement in sport do point out that... Irish politicians deal with Saudi, a lot of Irish businesses do - but maybe that should be questioned more as well.
"When you look at the power they have with that Public Investment Fund, with $620 billion, in 10 years' time where will global sport be?" he added.Main image: Golfers on the Ponte Vedra course in Florida during practice day at the PGA Tour in May 2012. Picture by: isogood / Alamy Stock Photo
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