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Ban them for life...and strip SNG of the Cup

Posted 9 months, 12 days ago

Ban them for life...and strip SNG of the Cup
There have been sketchy details emerging all day today regarding the quite absurd D35 Class association conference and from what I can decipher it would seem that there were eight owners present, with just one missing, six of whom had some relation to the Bertarelli family, who effectively turned extremely nasty on young Nicholas Gomet and issued an ultimatum with words like, "there's nine of us, one of you, take a hike or face the consequences." This is a very worrying development. What would the consequences be? Well Nicholas Gomet is part of the Gomet family that owns the small private Swiss bank, Banque Gomet, and suddenly he's thrust up against one of the most powerful families in Europe saying that there will be "consequences" if he races his boat that was effectively to be backed by Oracle money and talent for 2008. The Swiss banking fraternity is notoriously tight knit so Gomet, who's in his late 30's had little option but to accept the bullying tactics or else his business life could be impinged upon. Now, do we as sailors think this is right and acceptable? Personally I think this is the thin end of a very big wedge and if it's allowed to stand by the governing authorities of world sailing and by us the sailors then there's no telling where it could end. This is where we need our governing body, ISAF, to take a stand, show some guts and teeth and apply the relevant pressure to stamp this out right here, right now. My call would be to ban any sailor who competes in the D35 circuit for at least four years and strip them of any title they currently hold that is endorsed by ISAF. That means that SNG forfeits the Cup and all the sailors are banned from coming back into International competition and will have to re-apply to the governing body to be re-instated. How many pro-sailors would sign up then for the ridiculous D35 circuit? Precicesly none and they would become the 'pariah' class and about as relevant as an American Idol winner. If this cancer isn't cut out then it will spread in sailing like wildfire and ISAF will be fatally undermined forever. But what's the likely outcome? Sailing will sit back and let it all happen. Bertarelli knows this because everyone's frightened of his money. It's absolutely ridiculous. The man is single-handedly killing the sport and killing competition. Who the hell does he think he is? He's ruining the sport for our children and doing untold damage to the image. Where and when is it going to stop and how long do we have to go on pretending that things are going to be alright? The world governing bodies need to sit down and start looking at outcasting this renegade to the back end of beyond before it trickles down and effects us all. The west has fought hard for equality and fairness. We've seen off apartheid, racism, sexism, discrimination and elitism. In one foul stroke, a Swiss buffoon has cast our sport back into all of those categories. It is disgraceful and we should starve him of the oxygen of our sport, quite simply he should not be welcomed in sailing, anywhere on planet earth.  Full Story »

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