Thursday, October 4, 2007

Stop wrangling over the America's Cup

BMW Oracle has taken Cup holders Alinghi to court over rules they say are unfairly weighted in the defender's favor, including the right to disqualify teams or bar them from entering. On Thursday 20th Sept Alinghi tweaked the rules to address some of those issues but BMW Oracle, bankrolled by software billionaire Larry Ellison, said that was not enough and demanded direct negotiations before they would drop the lawsuit against Ernesto Bertarelli's Swiss syndicate. If defender Alinghi are so hell bent on racing the challengers then like other match racing events, why don't they make a winner takes all series out of it. That's right, do away with the Cup final and have a series of round robins with quarter, semi and grand final to determine to eventual winner. Do away with the challenger and defender and make it an all out scrap with the winner taking the cup home and the next event to be held in the country of their choice. As history has shown that the defender has always slanted the rules in their favour, surely this change is the only way to make a fair and equitable result at the end of the day. But most of all get rid of the lengthy and tedious court room battles because these billionaires are bringing the sport we love so much into disrepute just to fire up their own massive ego's.

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