Heel Tough Blog: UNC Confirms Michael Lombardi's Trip to Saudi Arabia

Tar Heel Tribune

It may have seemed like an Onion headline but, as the university confirmed on Thursday, it is real. The Tar Heels are looking to the Saudi Arabian government and its Public Investment Fund for help to raise money for the football program.

As first reported by Pablo Torre and later confirmed by Brendan Marks and Christopher Kamrani of the Athletic, Tar Heel general manager Michael Lombardi took a trip overseas to Saudi Arabia back in mid-August to gauge the interest of the government to see if there was any interest in investing in the football program. According to Marks and Kamrani, the trip was confirmed to them by UNC vice chancellor for communications Dean Stoyer. WRAL’s Brian Murphy was also able to confirm the trip via a program source.

My hope is that this trip was unsuccessful or that the university has had a serious talk and found a different direction to go in. Getting in bed with the Saudi government is one of the craziest ideas I have ever seen for raising money and it goes against the morals it has been built on. Letting the Saudi’s in would mean that you would have to give them some sort of control within the athletics department, which is not something that this university should be stooping to. Please, UNC administrators and booster, do the right thing and get this regime out of town as soon as possible because they spell nothing but trouble.