Humphrey Appleby

Any of the 27 or so countries where they regularly stage speedway could be, and possibly even some others besides. Wasn't one of the more crazy suggestions to have a GP in Dubai, although I'm not sure how well that would work in 50 degree heat. As always though, it comes down to promoters willing to stump up the readies.

Go-Speed are in liquidation, although the rights may be with Go-Speed International which still appear to be trading. The liquidator's recommendations may affect that though...

I must have missed all those editorials calling for the abolition of the retain-and-transfer system...

I think an American GP has been postulated as long as the SGP has been going...

Isn't it ironic that on the one hand league racing is increasing moving to 'playoffs' because they're supposedly more exciting, yet the World Championship moves ever more in the direction of a league system. I also wonder what the correlation is between those advocating 'playoffs' to decide titles, and those who decry advocates of the World Finals as being dinosaurs?

Must have very thin skins if occasional mild criticism in the Star is upsetting them. I'd hate to think what would happen if the tabloids ever got interested.

Not really. The main Aussie Rules teams were nearly all in the same city (Melbourne), whilst most of the professional sports teams in North America were based in the North-East where most of the major cities are not that far apart. It was only in the 1960s there was expansion to the west and later south, and in the case of Aussie Rules only in the 1990s that it expanded outside of Victoria (unless you count South Melbourne moving to Sydney in the 1980s). Baseball didn't have playoffs (other than the World Series) at all until 1969, when geographical expansion meant the leagues needed to be loosely divided into regional divisions, but with Atlanta and Californian teams both put in the NL West, it wasn't really for the convenience of travel. The divisional alignment was more to maximise games against traditional opponents (or to create new rivalries in the case of the expansion teams). Again not really. Neither the AL or NL, nor NFL or AFL (and latterly NFC and AFC) really have any geographical alignment (although the AL and AFL historically featured more teams to the 'west' in the sense of the Near Mid-West). It's true that the NBA and NHL are ostensibly geographically aligned, but in fact are more truly 'national' competitions than MLB or NBA in that every team plays every other team in the league. The playoffs in the NHL actually evolved out of the challenges for the Stanley Cup that was not exclusively the championship trophy of the NHL until 1947. The champions of other ice hockey leagues could and indeed did challenge for the trophy, and the World Hockey Association (that was eventually absorbed by the NHL) even tried to so as late as the 1970s. It's more to do with the fact that US major league sports are franchised rather than club based. The very old teams did start as clubs in the British/European sense, but quickly evolved agreements to have exclusive markets. As result, new teams tended to form new leagues, which in time became graded according to the quality of the players they could attract, which in turn led to the evolution of the farm system as teams from 'minor leagues' became adopted by teams from the 'major leagues'. Of course, American football is slightly different in that it evolved from a college sport that still acts as the feeder system, although some US colleges and even high schools get attendances that exceed those in the professional game. As such, there's no tradition of promotion and relegation, although as you point out, it does have the advantage that teams all start the season at the same level. However, I think that's more a historical accident than by design. It would be theoretically possible to play all 15 teams in the same conference, but the tradition in the American football is to play unbalanced schedules in conferences because of the limited length of the Autumn college term (11 weeks), followed by the best teams being invited to bowl games. This idea was carried over to the professional game. Even with the rising cost of fuel, travel costs are relatively negligible in a country the size of the UK. Moreover, it can often be easier to go north-south rather than east-west in the UK, even assuming you can get an equal split of teams between the defined regions. It makes no sense to contrive a geographically based playoff system in the UK, far less England. A round-robin approach is the best and fairest system if it's practical, and it does not preclude playoffs either. After all, the Aussies have taken this approach for years and few suggest the winners of the Grand Final shouldn't be the champions. They simply shouldn't be called playoffs in speedway though as you don't 'play' speedway.

Although English football had 'test matches' back in the 19th century that were effectively playoffs (so hardly a new idea), the concept of modern-day playoffs probably evolved in American football although there's probably an even longer tradition of them in Aussie Rules. The physical nature of that game and the short season means it's impractical for American football teams to play in traditional round-robin leagues, hence the evolution of conferences and the bowl system. The current structure NFL obviously evolved out of the merger of the former NFL and AFL, but the divisional structure already existed because of the need to have a more coherent schedule in the professional game. Of course, there then needed to be a way of determining the champion, hence the need for playoffs. Playoff systems in traditional round-robin competitions are more contrived. Even baseball eschewed them for years with the exception of the World Series between the winners of the two ostensibly rival leagues. Of course, Aussie Rules has long had them and probably implements the best approach in terms of a double elimination system that gives more advantages to higher placed teams at the end of the regular season.

Whilst the Olympics limit the number of places available to each country for each event (usually between 1 and 3), I think official qualification events are run for rowing and a number of other sports. Rowing is largely a team sport anyway. Rowers can be and are replaced in Olympic teams.

I didn't say it didn't have a qualifying process, but didn't the discussion start because the qualifiers were considered the weakest riders in the line-up? And in any case it's still difficult to think of any major competition where such a high percentage of the competitors are hand-picked or otherwise shooed in. Seeding one team for local interest is hardly unreasonable practice, even if it is Qatar, and the SGP has also been guilty of including some dubious local riders as wildcards.

FIFA may be corrupt, but the World Cup still has a competitive qualifying process.

I expect it was just another of those ideas that Platini expounded without thinking it through. It's of course more about political battles between UEFA and FIFA as the Europeans are generally sick of the corruption at FIFA, whilst Blatter is trying to shore up his political support by taking World Cup places away from Europe and giving them to other regions. I doubt this idea will come to pass because European federations will not want to give up places in the Finals. It's not like the Copa America that needs a couple of teams to make-up the numbers, and which in most cases are Latin American teams anyway.

Yes. but it could be argued that the better of non-SGP riders don't really bother with the qualifiers as they know they'll get nominated anyway. In addition, having so few riders qualifying means it becomes more of lottery. Again, the point is not that the best riders are usually not hand-picked, but that process fundamentally lacks sporting credibility. You'd probably also have a better World Cup line-up if you hand-picked the 32 finalists rather than going through the tedium of playing qualifiers, but I don't think that would be acceptable to many. F1 and MotoGP are really team sports. Although the requirements are much more stringent than they used to be, anyone ponying up enough cash can enter a team and then select the drivers/riders they want in the same way that other team sports do. This said of course, F1 drivers have be eligible for a Super Licence, which is effectively a qualification process. Not really that familiar with rallying, but can't just about anyone enter a World Championship rally if you put in an entry?

Well at least the few who still follow the sport... I actually don't particularly advocate a return to an old-style qualifying system - it seems daft to decide places in a GP based on one-off meetings - but it's equally ridiculous to justify there shouldn't be a qualifying system basing that opinion on the vagaries of how things were in the past. Organisers hand-picking riders has no sporting merit whatsoever, and I don't think it happens in any serious top-level sport. There is some sort of recognised qualifying process, whether that be based on a ranking system or some sort of qualifying competition.

Whilst there were extreme examples of a limited number of qualifying places from certain countries/regions in the past, there's no reason why a qualifying system couldn't be devised to reduce the incidences of this. Indeed the system of two Semi-Finals towards the end of the one-off World Final era ensured much better line-ups (relatively speaking) than had hitherto been the case. Nevertheless, the reality is that a field of different nationalities is needed to create interest. There were times in the 1980s when more the half the line-ups would be full of Danes, and probably the same for other nationalities at various times. It would have been quite boring...

I wouldn't suggest they haven't selected the best riders, but I think places in the World's premier event should be earned rather than obtained through patronage. Rising talent will earn their place anyway if they're good enough, but the wildcard slot could be used to try out riders who might add some interest.

The players that automatically get berths in events in these sports generally do so on merit. They have to earn ranking points by playing in a number of competitions over the course of a season, and are not just arbitrarily selected by the event organisers. There are a few wildcard places in each event for local interest, but they're one-offs rather than season-long selections. Golf does have exemption from qualifying for former champions etc.. as well, but again these are earned rather than granted. The SGP line-up should be selected on some sort of ranking criteria based around rider performances in various leagues and other competitions. You might not actually get a better line-up, but it would be more credible from sporting perspective.

It's actually more to do with slowing the speed of impact at a rate that reduces the chances of injury. Soft substances of course tend to do that better than hard surfaces, but you could hit something soft and injure yourselves if it stops you abruptly.

Nor are you ever likely to as there's only about 5,000 households being monitored, and I don't think BARB monitor television on mobile devices either. However, any half-decent statistician will tell you that you can extrapolate with reasonable confidences if you have a big and diverse enough sample size, How are they more accurate if Sky are using the same monitoring system as everyone else?

Bit of a stretch to imagine that. It's 350 miles from Tampere to the nearest Russian City (St. Petersburg) and most Russian speedway tracks are considerably further away. Russians also need a visa to visit Finland, so hardly convenient for all but the most dedicated fans.

I certainly don't, and was certainly saying so when a certain journalist was trumpeting the 'global' coverage of the SGP not so long ago. LOL Are we seriously expected to believe that BSI who have an exclusive multi-decade contract for the SGP, and who pay 1.5 million quid a year for the privilege, have no influence at all in this matter? Because they're potentially competing for sponsors, GP hosts and television contracts. The SEC is potentially a duplicate World Championship, despite the name, and whilst I don't hold any particular candle for BSI, having competing competitions is ultimately not good for the sport. Best thing we can do is completely ignore anything in the media and make up our own minds. The Star has also been guilty of glossing over certain episodes in the SGP, and I can't ever remembering it asking meaningful questions about the governance of the sport. It's left to a handful of fan sites to ask the difficult questions about why certain deals are made, where the money is going (not that speedway generates megabucks), and whether all this is good for the sport. And yes it is the business of those who follow the sport if they want it to be.

Think riders would just choose to opt out of the World Team Cup. At least the FIM/BSI hegemony is finally starting to be questioned though...

Yes, but one is a World Championship round in a competition that's been running for nearly 20 years, whilst the other isn't and is in its first season in its current format. As for questioning whether there should be an Italian GP, well I guess BSI must now looking for an exit strategy...

A bit rich of them considering the crowd for the Italian GP...

Would be surprised if there were many more speedway riders than that, let alone longtrack riders. Maybe in the past, although I'd probably struggle to believe that as well.