Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
America's Cup
,
Grant Dalton
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Kim Dotcom
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Sponsorship
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Steven Joyce
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Taxpayer funding
,
Team New Zealand
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Tui billboard
This morning's Herald has a follow-up story on Team New Zealand. And we laughed out loud when we read this:
With the minister effectively calling Team NZ's bluff, Dalton late last night moved to offer further reassurance that he was still chasing funds from private and commercial sources.
Dalton declined to reveal how much Team NZ needed to tide them over until February.
"We have raised a significant amount of money to help us out in the interim. If the minister is telling us we need to find more money then my answer is that is what I'm doing every second of every day."
Dalton told the Weekend Herald his intention in calling yesterday's press briefing was never to try and back Joyce into a corner. He wanted to clear up some of the "hysteria" and "rhetoric" around last week's protocol announcement, which he believed was negatively influencing the public's appetite for another challenge. Throwing public funds into the America's Cup has always been a hard sell for the Kiwi public, but with Cup defenders Oracle Team USA widely criticised for tabling rules for the next event that appeared stacked in their favour, Dalton's task of trying to convince New Zealanders that challenging again is a worthwhile endeavour became all the tougher. The general reaction from Team NZ fans was "tell Oracle to go and get stuffed". That approach won't hurt Oracle, it will only hurt Team NZ, said Dalton.
Sorry Grant; we don't buy that. Backing the Government into a corner was exactly what yesterday's hastily-convened media conference was about.If ever there was a statement worthy of a Tui billboard, it's "I'm not holding the Government to ransom"!
There was talk last year of Kim Dotcom coming on board as a sponsor. We use the term "on board" in a general sense; Dotcom physically getting on board an AC boat would have a severe effect on the power to weight ratio!
But the Large German Gentleman has been splashing the loot around lately, despite his assets supposedly being frozen. If he's got $4 million to buy an election, and $5 million for anyone who
Instead of holding a presser yesterday, Mr Dalton should have visited Coatesville. One could almost say that the now-farcical America's Cup and Kim Dotcom are a marriage made in heaven!
