When the WRC Promoter sale was announced on the last day of July, the FIA communication was headlined: “FIA Completes ‘Deal of the century’ for FIA World and European Rally Championships.”
FIA president H.E. Mohammed Ben Sulayem explained the significance of the sale of WRC Promoter to Cosmobolis and Park Square Capital and the longterm commercial rights agreement for both the World and European Rally Championships.
“There is,” he said, “no other deal to the FIA which is as good as this. The rest of the deals that [came] before me were raw deals. I would say it very frankly. What did we get from Formula One? Do you know how much [for] the FIA? Zero and no power.
“This doesn’t work anymore. So we improved it. We improved the Formula E [agreement]. But rallying is so important. It’s not about the money. It’s about working together with the promoter as one body, injecting [funding] back in the sport, making it much better with all of the challenges, listening to the teams, listening to the driver, listening to the fans, and listening to the media.
Malcolm Wilson has also been instrumental in pushing through the WRC Promoter sale
“And I am so confident that, with this deal, with the people we have here, with their vision also, that we can make it much, much better. This is why the deal is benefiting everyone, not one side.”
Asked what he felt fans could expect from the deal, the president said: “As I said, we will inject [funding] back on the team and the championship. And also, you’re talking about looking at the whole championship, the logistics, the races, where it goes, and the media also, we need much more exposure [for the WRC].
“We have good drivers here, and I’m not talking only about the professional drivers, but I’m talking about the private drivers. We talked about the privateers. If you remove the privateers, you don’t have a race. But a lot of it, the technical side also, the cars itself, this is so important for us. But one thing that I will say, the benefit, you will see it. We are discussing it now, it’s only one direction: better.”
