Five years ago the playbook was simple: buy the trophy asset, worry about returns later. That era ended in April, when PIF said LIV Golf's long-term needs were "no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF's investment strategy" (GOLF.com). By 8 September LIV was in Chapter 11 in New Jersey, carrying more than $500m of debt (CNN). Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau sit on its creditor list.

The snow went first, actually. Trojena, NEOM's desert ski resort, lost the 2029 Asian Winter Games in January when the event was postponed with no new date (AGBI). At Newcastle, PIF has been sounding out investors for a minority stake to help fund a bigger stadium (SportsPro).

Then came 29 September. An independent commission found Manchester City guilty of every charge of serious financial breach across nine seasons, built on "sham" sponsorship contracts (Al Jazeera). Abu Dhabi isn't Riyadh. The lawyers are doing well out of both.

White & Case built the deepest Saudi bench, and it isn't close. Restructuring work usually goes back to whoever drafted the original deals. They know where the problems are buried.

Abu Dhabi's sovereign funds use a different set of firms. Skadden leads on Mubadala and ADIA work with 18 partners, ahead of White & Case on 13 and Akin on 12. That matters later, because Abu Dhabi also owns Manchester City.

Most of the disclosed work is still construction. Across 102 distinct matters for PIF, NEOM, LIV, Newcastle and the PGA Tour, 65 are build and just 18 are unwind. Expect that ratio to move fast.

Gibson Dunn is the cleanest case of a firm working both ends. Partner Matthew Schwartz's record covers LIV's formation, its corporate structure and its Fox broadcast deal. Now the firm is LIV's lead Chapter 11 counsel, with Cole Schotz alongside (LIV Golf).

Skadden's unwind work comes from the other side of the ropes, defending the PGA Tour, including against the LIV golfers' antitrust suit. Keker, Van Nest & Peters put nine lawyers on that fight alone. One of their records notes a win compelling compliance from Saudi Arabia's fund.

LIV's way out of bankruptcy has a new backer. BC Partners Credit is sponsoring the restructuring plan, with Paul Weiss and Rimon advising (LIV Golf). BC Partners is a big enough client that its deal history swamped our rankings, so we left it out. But it's worth a look on its own. Kirkland has 73 lawyers on its disclosed matters, and Latham has 33. Paul Weiss, the firm actually advising on LIV, has four.

Abu Dhabi's problem runs the other way. Nobody is pulling money out of Manchester City; the bill is coming in.

The lawyer with the best record against football's regulators is Freshfields' Rhodri Thomas. He overturned UEFA's Champions League ban at CAS in 2020, then won City's 2025 arbitration over the Premier League's sponsorship rules. The 115-charge case went the other way.

The verdict is only the start. Clubs that finished behind City have a case for lost trophies and European places, and Reuters spoke to a sports barrister, Yasin Patel, who thinks some could even argue they missed out on players who chose City instead. Unless the league forces everyone together, he said, "it could take years."

Watch Paul Hastings. It handled Silver Lake's $500m stake in City Football Group, and that investor now owns a slice of a group facing sanctions. 

Here's the twist. Pulling back from sport isn't pulling back from the kingdom: since January 2023, 142 lateral partners have moved into Riyadh and 84 have left, a net gain of 58. That count covers all firms, and some of it reflects firms restructuring rather than individual partners moving. In September 2026, for example, partners at AS&H, Clifford Chance's Saudi affiliate, were recorded as moves when the firms changed their arrangement.

Gibson Dunn hired Waleed Rasrommani, Linklaters' national managing partner in Saudi Arabia, in April 2026. That was the month PIF cut LIV loose. His record runs through NEOM joint ventures with OneWeb and Samsung C&T. Whoever profits from the clean-up, the smart money has already placed its next bet.

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