Sacking ends Coutts chances of sailing in next America's Cup

By IAN STUART

UPDATE - Kiwi yachting legend Russell Coutts' multi-million dollar defection to the Swiss is over, and any chance he has of sailing in the next America's Cup now appears remote.

A year-long dispute between Coutts and Alinghi syndicate head Ernesto Bertarelli ended in fireworks overnight after the Swiss pharmaceuticals billionaire instructed his lawyer to sack Coutts over the telephone.

At the same time, Bertarelli sent out a media release saying Coutts had repeatedly violated his duties and they had no choice but to sack him immediately.

The announcement shocked Coutts, who said in a statement he had repeatedly told Bertarelli he "had some very real concerns about aspects of his management style and the direction of the team".

The concerns were based on Coutts' experience as a skipper and in a leadership role in his last three America's Cup campaigns.

Coutts said as he worked with Bertarelli, he was surprised to find the team owner repeatedly made it clear he wanted to depart from previously agreed commitments.

"Most seriously, I was concerned at the impact of this management style not just on my contract, but on the wider America's Cup event," he said in the statement.

"I found the role he increasingly insisted I occupy in the syndicate was at considerable variance with the one we had discussed at length during and since the last America's Cup campaign.

"This and other issues were clear breaches of the contract I had entered into with him," said Coutts.

Bertarelli's move comes just a week or so after the protocol for cup skippers was changed to stop anyone who had sailed for more than 180 days in either a training or racing role with one syndicate from switching to another.

The change means Coutts, one of the most effective America's Cup's skippers in its history, is probably out of the action for the 2007 challenge in Valencia.

The team said today that repeated violations by Coutts of his duties had led to his sacking. He refused to helm Alinghi in a regatta in Newport, America, and had also refused to sail with the Team Alinghi crew at recent regattas in Marstrand, Sweden, Trieste, Italy and in Lisbon, Portugal, where the regattas were about to commence.

"This constitutes a clear violation of his employment contract," the team said. "Furthermore, in various press statements made early July, he declared that he was no longer part of the Alinghi Team."

The team statement said it was also particularly damaging that Coutts was involved in the planning and development of a new race series which was incompatible with his responsibilities and duties.

He had manoeuvred himself into an inextricable conflict of interest, Alinghi said.

Coutts' future was uncertain, including his association with any other syndicate.

Emirates Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton refused to talk about the sacking or comment on whether they were interested in talking to Coutts.

Coutts shocked the yachting world in 2000 when he and Brad Butterworth changed loyalties and signed with billionaire Bertarelli after Team New Zealand had successfully defended the cup in Auckland.

No sign-on fee or salary were ever publicly disclosed, although it was rumoured to be many millions of dollars.

Coutts then skippered Team Alinghi to a 5-0 thrashing of Team New Zealand in Auckland last year to take one of the most coveted sporting trophies offshore.

Coutts said in his statement he would have liked to have sailed in the next America's Cup but the new rule, combined with his dismissal, appear to preclude that.

Coutts had also been talking with former America's Cup helmsman Paul Cayard on a new sailing competition, which may have upset Bertarelli.

"I have made no secret of the fact that Paul and I have been talking about these ideas, which I thought might provide an exciting new event in sailing that, if it ever came off, would in no way be in competition to the America's Cup."

However, despite the way it had ended, he said his time with Alinghi had been a terrific experience.

Coutts is competing in the Portugal Match Cup at Cascais.

He has won the America's Cup as a skipper three times. His sailing record includes winning the ISAF World Youth Championships, a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics, three World Match Racing Championships, numerous international match race wins and IOR, IMS and one design world championship victories.

In New Zealand he has been honoured as a Commander of the British Empire and made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. He has twice been the International Yacht Racing Union's World Sailor of the Year.

Alinghi has two other helmsmen -- Peter Holmberg and Jochen Schuemann.

- NZPA