SailGP: Transfer fee a painkiller for British skipper's move to Canadian team
by Richard Gladwell 15 Nov 2024 12:20 NZDT
A happy Giles Scott - Head of Sailing - INEOS Britannia - Louis Vuitton 37th America's Cup, Race Day 4 - October 16, .2024 © Ricardo Pinto / America's Cup
Emirates GBR CEO and former driver Ben Ainslie told SailGP Media that Scott’s Canadian team skipper's offer came at a ‘hectic period’ with INEOS Britannia preparing to launch its historic 37th America’s Cup campaign.
But ‘often with these situations,’ Ainslie says, ‘it’s never a perfect time’. “It was clearly a great opportunity for him and one he felt was a sliding doors moment career wise,” Ainslie says. “I wanted to support him and his decision.”
The Canadian offer came shortly after Scott was left off America's Cup team's INEOS Britannia’s starting line-up, but Ainslie credits him with dealing with that ‘difficult decision (…) amazingly well’. The transfer offer was no different. “We have a great relationship built over many years of trust and respect and we dealt with this situation in SailGP really well between us,” he says.
Scott's perspective on his move from the America's Cup helm to the chaseboat was outlined in an interview in the Telegraph UK last month.
Interestingly in the same SailGP media piece, Ainslie confirmed that the British team was paid a transfer fee to help ease the pain of Scott's departure.
When the SailGP League started with six teams in 2019, startup franchises were initially given USD5million each by the League in Season 1, the same teams now change hands for USD40-60million plus operating expenses, premium salaries and now transfer fees. It appears that Scott was the first for whom a transfer fee was paid.
That maybe the the first League transfer payment was to a British SailGP team should be no surprise, given that Manchester United, part-owned by Ainslie's America's Cup backer Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has forked out an eye-watering £600million on 21 new players over four years. Against that backdrop Scott's transfer fee, whatever it is, will have been ice cream money.
A few weeks before the start of the 2024 Louis Vuitton Cup, Scott was abruptly swapped off the British America's Cup co-helm role to be replaced again by Tokyo2020 Gold medalist Dylan Fletcher. The move took some time to settle down, but the Brits went on to win most of their races, became the Challenger and took two races off the Defender in the 37th Match.
Fletcher has now been named as the helmsman of the British SailGP team.
The excellent post race show "Inside Tack" which revealed a lot about the performance of the British America's Cup team and others. In those conversations Scott, as the newly installed Head of Sailing, was clearly the adult supervision in the team - both from his perch in the chase boat, and discussions ashore. He showed an incisive ability to identify the critical performance issues and address them with a quick wit, and not a high word count.
So it will be interesting to see whether he can bring the same qualities to the Canadian SailGP team, and how the British team fare with Scott in their face on the start line.
It also remains to be seen, how or if, Scott's SailGP commitments can be tapered with the Brits (or any other) America's Cup team for the next cycle which is barely in first gear heading towards the 2027 Cup. It is not clear under the yet to be announced Protocol for the America's Cup whether Scott will be locked to the Brits through a nationality clause.
On the basis that Scott's function is Head of Sailing, under the 2024 Protocol, he is a free agent to join any team he wishes - and without transfer fees being paid.
The Pre-Season transfer antics come to a head on November 23 with the first race of Season 5 in Dubai, with 11 of the 12 teams on the water.
They include the new Brazilian team skippered by Martine Grael, and with three America's Cup luminaries crewing. Emirates GBR with its changed skipper/helmsman. The shadowy Italian team, whose only announcement has been that their twice America's Cup winning helmsman will not be skippering, he will likely be in the chase boat. Australian SailGP and America's Cup winner Kyle Langford, will also be with the Italians.
As mentioned the Canadian team will have a new helmsman. The 12th team, the French - which sailed under Orient Express backing last season, will not be sailing in Dubai, choosing instead waiting for the delivery of their new F50 in Auckland in January. The Swiss will be on the startline with two key members of the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team, Arnaud Psarofaghis and Bryan Mettraux, in their ranks, along with Kiwi Grinder Stu Dodson acquired from the Spanish SailGP team.
The irony remains, in a League seeming awash with money on several fronts, is that it seems to be split in the "Haves" - who have private ownership and are the ones able to pay the necessary financial enticement to get sailors from the top teams to magnanimously join a team much lower on the leaderboard.
And then there are the "Have Nots" - teams which have limited private backing like the Black Foils which don't have the deep pockets to pay big paypackets, transfer fees and the like - and instead have to run strong development programs and promote from within to fill the shoes left by the recently departed.
Quite how all this shakes out on the Event and Season 5 leaderboard will be most intriguing.