The DP World Tour has won its legal battle against 12 players who committed “serious breaches” of the Tour’s code of behaviour by appearing in LIV Golf events without permission.
A three-strong arbitration panel heard five days of arguments from lawyers for a group of LIV players and those representing the DP World Tour in February in an attempt to clarify the playing status of the former on the latter. The case arose when players requested “conflicting event” releases for the inaugural LIV Golf event in England last June. Those requests were denied, but the players competed at Centurion Club regardless and were fined £100,000 and banned from the 2022 Scottish Open.
Initially Ian Poulter, Adrián Otaegui and Justin Harding appealed against the decision and the punishments were stayed, pending a substantive appeal, allowing the players to compete in DP World Tour events, with Otaegui winning the Andalucía Masters in October.
The number of appellants then grew to 16, but Sergio García, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Otaegui withdrew from the case, which was heard behind closed doors by Sports Resolutions UK.
Announcing its decision on Thursday, the panel concluded the players had committed “serious breaches of the Code of Behaviour of the DPWT Regulations” by playing in LIV’s London and Portland events, despite their release requests having been refused. Their appeals have been dismissed and the players ordered to pay the £100,000 fines, which were imposed within 30 days.
Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour’s Chief Executive, said: “We welcome today’s decision by Sport Resolutions which upholds our regulations and our ability to administer them. We are delighted that the panel recognised we have a responsibility to our full membership to do this and also determined that the process we followed was fair and proportionate. In deciding the level of these sanctions last June, we were simply administering the regulations which were created by our members and which each of them signed up to.
“It is, of course, regrettable that resources, both financial and staffing, which could have been otherwise deployed across our organisation, have been impacted by this lengthy arbitration process. However, with the clarity provided by today’s decision, we look forward to continuing to focus on our 2023 global schedule, whilst also continuing to plan for 2024 with the valued support of our many partners and stakeholders. We will now carefully consider the details of today’s decision with our Board, our Tournament Committee and our legal advisors and take the appropriate action in due course.”
LIV Golf has yet to officially respond to the arbitration panel’s decision, and it remains to be seen if Poulter, Lee Westwood and others will appeal against the verdict or give up their membership of the DP World Tour, thereby ending their involvement in the Ryder Cup as players or future captains.