FILE PHOTO: Golf - DP World Tour championship - Dubai, UAE - 20/11/16 - Lee Westwood of England tees off. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah
(Reuters) - The DP World Tour said it has imposed a new round of suspensions and fines on 26 players who breached its rules by competing in LIV Golf and Asian Tour events without permission.
The DP World Tour, formerly known as the European Tour, said in a statement on Thursday that the sanctions were related to events that took place from June 22, 2022 to April 2, 2023.
Last month the Tour won its legal battle to be able to suspend and fine players who competed in the first two events on the Saudi-backed LIV circuit in 2022 without permission.
The Tour said the new sanctions were determined on a case-by-case basis to recognise differences among tournaments and the impact it had on the Tour's broadcast partners and sponsors.
The fines ranged from 12,500 pounds ($15,776.25) to 100,000 pounds for each breach, while the total suspension imposed on any player was a maximum of eight DP World Tour events.
Last week, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Richard Bland and Lee Westwood resigned their Tour memberships, becoming ineligible for this year's Ryder Cup.
Westwood has previously criticised the Tour for its sanctions.
"People say I knew exactly what would happen, but nobody told us the extent of the punishments," Westwood told the Daily Telegraph newspaper this month.
"The way I view it is that, as a European Tour member, I was allowed to be a member of the PGA Tour without any problem for all those years.
"Tell me, what is the difference? Just because LIV is funded by the Saudis – a country where my Tour used to play and where we were encouraged to play?"
Critics have said the $255 million LIV Series is a vehicle for Saudi Arabia to try to improve its image in the face of criticism of its human rights record.
($1 = 0.7923 pounds)
(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
