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to the bidders who had been given a
deadline. I had, as FIM President, been
empowered by the Management Council to handle this ma tter and I had.
In fact the Management Co uncil had
told me in J une that I cou ld terminate
die ma tter and sign a con tract, tha t
they were p leased with th e way nego riationswere being handled, bu t I did
not want to do th is before the General
Assembly. Then in June much hi gher
bids came in and Dom a 's bid .was the
hi ghest and th e Man agement Council
after being informed of Doma 's im portance and solvency empowered me to
negotiate only wi th Dorn a to close th e
contract: What we were voting on was
whether the G enera l Assemb ly
approved of the way th e negotiations
had been handled by th e Management
Cou nci l and the president.
.
ADd their approval was by a large
majori ty. I have heard that Doma used
a m iddlema n to approach th e FIM and
th at, according to Bernie Ecc1estone,
a large co mmission was p aid to
someone.
Dom a were in fact th e on ly company
to u se an agency to place their bid with
the FIM. This is normal practice. T hey
used a Du tch company which buys
from Doma righ ts to weekly h ighligh ts of the Spanish First Division of
Soccer for Du tch TV. The agency,
T op sport which used to be Interfu tbol, .
received no commissi on fro m us, I can
assure you. I told them that from the
begin ni ng, but I have no idea and it
is none of my business or anyone else's
wh eth er they receive a com mission
fro m Doma. Bernie knows how TV
righ ts sales are done but he amuses
himself pretending to be naive. He is
far too clever, far too smart to ever be
called nai ve.
.
In favor of Doma, they have their
solven cy, but they also lack experience
in motorsports.
Sure, this is a complai n t I hear. With
a company like Dom a working at such
hi gh levels in European soccer and
handling NBA rights too in Europe,
it is not a problem to buy the expe rtise
you need . Doma have already acq uired
the experts and you will see them at
the FIM -Dorna press conference in
J erez. T hey ha ve men like Carmelo
Ezpeleta, a very experienced man in
organization and promotion. T he y
have Mr. Ro ures also, former Sports
Director for the big TV-3 company in
Barcelona. This kind of large company
has absol utely no problem buying the
expe rience that the y need. Our T V
expe rts tell us that there is a li mi ted
am ount of money out there for sports
TV righ ts and that if we have sold
motorcycling rights for $30 million we
have probably taken $20 million from
tenn is an d $10 million from Formula
l~ That is good for us, but n ot so good
for Bernie.
T he major sponsors like Marlboro,
Rothmans and Lucky Strike are concerned that the title sponsorship that
Dom a is allowed to contract will dilute
th e value of their sponsorship
investm en L
The title sponsorship is very restricted .
No alcohol, no tobacco. And there is
no exclusivity claus e. If the ti tl e
sponsor were, say, Coca-Cola, Pepsi
would still be ab le to buy signage. Who
can den y the FIM the righ t to sell title
spon sorship? The organizer pays the
FIM only 5000 Swiss Francs ($7250) to
run the GP. We must send people to
each GP and it costs us money. We .
could charge each orga nizer a half
million dollars and eli mi nate title
spon sorshi p. I p refer to bring the
mon ey in from outside th e sp ort.
Bern ie gives the impression tha t we
have given vast marketing rights to
Dorna, but tha t is not true. T itle
sponso rshi p will not hurt anyone. .
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