Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Potential F1 bid faces major problems - Eddie Jordan


Eddie Jordan has said that a possible bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to take control of Formula 1 would face major problems at present.

Jordan says teams would want long-term income assurances if the sport was taken off free-to air TV, which the European Union currently guarantees.

"Until that happens I feel this is just a little bit of posturing," he told the BBC, for whom he now acts as a pundit.

Jordan also stressed that a new, post-2012 Concorde Agreement is critical.

Though News Corporation and Italian investment firm Axor - who are linked to Ferrari - revealed they were working on a potential bid to buy F1, they did admit in a joint statement that "there can be no certainty this will lead to an approach to its current owners".

Its current owner CVC Capital Partners - which paid £1.8bn to buy F1 in 2006 - has insisted the sport is not "for sale".

Any takeover would involve changes to the Concorde Agreement, a commercial arrangement involving the racing teams, CVC and the sport's governing body, the FIA.

This agreement says that the sport should be shown on free-to-air TV where possible, though the agreement runs out at the end of 2012 and the signatories are in the process of negotiating a new one.

The BBC has the UK broadcasting rights to F1 until 2013. The television companies controlled by News Corp are not currently free-to-air.

"I'm still concerned as to how it [a potential bid] can become effectual," said Jordan, who used to manage his own F1 team, Jordan.