Brian Keogh Goes Inside McIlroy Horizon Court Papers And Finds $129 Million And Unicef Shennanigans

This is an absolutely brilliant piece by my favourite golf journalist Brian Keogh on his IrishGolfDesk page on the Rory McIroy versus Horizon court battle.

Brian has been through the Commercial Court claims by both sides with a fine tooth comb and has dug up some revealing facts.

  • €129m is Horizon’s estimate of McIlroy’s non-tournament earnings, without performance bonuses, over the next five years.
  • Rory made US$ 50 million without hitting a ball in 2013.
  • Rory actually signed a three-year extension to his original contract with Horizon just seven months ago keeping, them together until 2017.
  • Rory’s Nike deal alone is worth $20m a year.

But probably most surprising of all is the revelation that Rory was not happy that “Horizon paid children’s charity UNICEF $166,000 of his money in March 2013 without his knowledge or consent.”  The money was apparently paid by Horizon to Unicef by Horizon on Rory’s behalf ahead of a planned humanitarian trip to Haiti this year.  The trip was then cancelled to let Rory play in the Valero Texas Open.

Horizon’s legal team told the McIlroy Team “The Unicef donation was made precisely for the purpose of protecting your client and his reputation. Your client had committed to travelling to Haiti as a Unicef ambassador. On the eve of the visit our clients were informed that if a donation was not made in advance of your client landing on the ground in Haiti, that the trip would be cancelled which had the potential to cause significant reputational damage to Mr McIlroy. It was in those circumstances that the donation was made on behalf of your client. As soon as your client expressed dissatisfaction with the donation the transaction was reversed.”

There’s much more in Brian’s article; if you are following the case it’s a must read.

 

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