There may come a day - and for many it is already here - when sportswashing is so common and accepted that it is no longer a talking point. But for me, it is not here yet.
Saudi Arabia has bought big boxing matches, a Formula 1 race and Newcastle United and Qatar has bought a World Cup. All participants have been rightly grilled on the issue.
So it is only right to quiz the golfers who are teeing up at the first Saudi-backed golf event at the Centurion Club this week - the LIV Golf Invitational London - on whether they feel they are being used to promote the Saudi regime. If they really care. And is there anywhere in the world where, as “independent contractors”, they would not ply their trade.
Phil Mickelson, who called the Saudis “scary mother*******” in comments released in February that he thought were off the record, kept to the script yesterday. But Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood literally had no answers when I asked them if there was anywhere they would not play if the money was right.
The stunned look on their faces, and the uncomfortable body language, showed they had not been briefed on this question.
The exchange with myself went like this:
NEIL McLEMAN: If Vladimir Putin had a tournament, would you play there?
IAN POULTER: That's speculation. Not even going to comment on speculation.
NM: As a generality, is there anywhere you wouldn't play on a moral basis? If the money was right, is there anywhere you wouldn't play?
IP: I don't need to answer that question.
NM: Lee, would you have played in apartheid South Africa, for example?
LEE WESTWOOD: You're just asking us to answer a hypothetical question which we can't answer a question on that.
HAVE YOUR SAY! Should top golfers be playing in the Saudi-backed tournament? Let us know in the comments section
So to clarify, neither ruled out playing a Putin-funded event in eastern Ukraine. Or an event in North Korea. Many golfers, including LIV boss Greg Norman, played events at Sun City in apartheid South Africa and Westwood did not say he would not have done so. Am I being unfair? Maybe. Should sportsmen be held to a higher moral standard when the UK government sells arms to Saudi Arabia and always wants more oil? Replies on my Twitter timeline today included comments about how “the UK helped murder half a million children during the Iraq war”.
But everyone has got their own mirror to look at in the morning and their own moral compass. And that is why this issue is such a good talking point because everyone has their view on the morality of foreign regimes investing in sport - and whether you would take the cash if offered. But like Boris Johnson partying during lockdown, this $25m event in Hertfordshire seems just as out of sync with a nation - and a world - suffering from a cost-of-living crisis.
There is no little irony that the first Saudi-backed LIV Golf event will be concluded this Saturday night with a concert by Jesse J. Because for all the talk about this breakaway league being “Golf, but louder,” it is really all about the money. And it seems that all the golfers here have their price tag.
