DP World Tour: LIV Golf players told to pay £100,000 over 'serious breaches'

England's Lee Westwood was one of 12 players appealing against the DP World Tour's sanctions

LIV Golf rebels committed "serious breaches" by leaving the DP World Tour to play in the Saudi Arabia-funded events, a panel has ruled.

The 12 players have now been told to pay the £100,000 fines originally imposed within 30 days.

Arbitration body Sporting Resolutions said DP World Tour chief executive Keith Pelley "acted entirely reasonably in refusing releases".

Pelley said he welcomed the decision by the independent three-person panel.

He told BBC Sport it is "a landmark deal for members and sports organisations" as "if you can't administer your rules and regulations, it's troublesome for your business".

LIV players may now face bans from the Europe-based DP World Tour and the Ryder Cup.

Pelley added "we've never said that this is about banning players".

However, he also said that further sanctions "might make it more difficult" for those players to retain their tour membership and qualify for the Ryder Cup.

England's Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood were among 12 players appealing against punishments the tour wanted to impose for playing in the inaugural LIV event at the Centurion Club in Hertfordshire in June.

They were suspended from the Scottish Open and two events in the United States and fined for failing to abide by the tour's refusal of waivers to play at the LIV tournament, which coincided with the DP World Tour's Scandinavian Mixed event.

The players argued that they were independent contractors and had not been prevented from playing on rival circuits such as the PGA Tour in the past.

The DP World Tour objected, saying that players competing in simultaneous events on the LIV tour was damaging to its long established calendar.

During the hearing that took place behind closed doors in February, the panel found that the DP World Tour "has legitimate and justifiable interest in protecting the rights of its membership".

Pelley said he would spend "the next month or so" speaking with the tour's board, tournament committee, legal advisors and senior management to determine what further sanctions would be suitable for players who competed in conflicting tournaments after the inaugural LIV event.

"If they live to the consequences for breaching that we impose on them in the future, then yes, we'll welcome them back," he said. "I have no problem with them playing at all."

In a statement, Pelley added: "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."

The US-based PGA Tour is involved in a separate anti-trust lawsuit with LIV Golf and a handful of its players who were suspended for playing on the LIV circuit.

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