Humphrey Appleby

Possibly the nominal value of the rider assets if they were sold. They're often not included in balance sheets as human resources don't have a tangible value, but transferring riders would presumably raise some money.

Assuming they're limited companies. I think the BSPA is something like a unincorporated association which isn't required to file AFAIK.

As the anti-EU media never ceases of reminding everyone, many of the major economies in the EU also have higher levels of state debt. Again as the anti-EU media never ceases of reminding everyone, the ECB also authorised 600 billion of quantitative easing in the past couple of years, and the US Federal Reserve created an extra 3 trillion dollars. Yet pound has fallen to its lowest levels against euro in five years, and the lowest against the dollar for possibly 30 years. And strangely this all happened straight after the Brexit vote, and worsened further as news of a 'hard Brexit' was reported. Is Peter Hitchens an economist or does he have any experience in financial sectors? If not, then his opinion has no more validity than anyone else's, and he's also clearly writing for a particular audience.

It's not really big money though, and BSI's revenue has also declined significantly over the past four years when it was around 10 million. It's still better than making a loss, but indicates why GPs are being held at Teterow rather than Parken nowadays. Unfortunately shows that the sport just isn't very marketable, even with all the supposed resources of IMG.

Maybe people also shouldn't listen to EI Addio's who make statements about things people didn't say.

I was saying if tracks ran training programmes. I'd say that if so long as a promotion is willing to pay a rider at previously agreed rates for the duration of the contract, a rider should be bound by that. If not, then they should be free to seek another team. Of course, the standard BSPA contract is effectively zero hours in practice, so it's difficult to determine what's fair and reasonable.

Greece joined the EEC in 1981 - not long after the UK in fact - and before the EU existed. I think you're confusing the EU and the euro.

The Greeks shouldn't have continually elected governments that spent more than what they took in taxes, and it would also help if the population was more willing to actually pay those taxes. They brought it upon themselves, and would be in trouble even if they were still using the drachma.

Which is why the euro is the second most traded currency in the world, is the second most widely held reserve currency, and has increased 20% in value against the pound in the past year. Yes, it clearly doesn't work...

Bosman only applied to international transfers, which has never been relevant in speedway. Football had to abolish the retain-and-transfer system domestically because players circumvented the rules by using foreign clubs as intermediaries, but no transfer or loan fees have ever been payable when speedway riders sign for a team abroad.

It's not the will of the majority, as only 37% of the electorate voted to leave the EU.

They know they'll just get subsidies from the UK government instead.

The system has survived because realistically no promoter in recent years has dared to prevent a rider signing a contract with another team. And I think there's also a dispute resolution process if that actually happened. The only real consequence is there's a merry-go-round of nominal loan fees paid by one promoter to another, with the occasional transfer fee being demanded (and I think riders even get a percentage of that). The system seems rather pointless nowadays, but it doesn't prevent riders from earning a living.

The difference is that's a contract and work permit riders have to be paid a minimum wage. Merely being on the asset list of a promotion doesn't mean a rider is contracted, far less paid anything, yet in theory their parent promotion can still decide who they ride for.

No-one has yet legally challenged the asset system in speedway, which is why it still exists. However, it's hard to imagine its survival if anyone ever did, although in practice I don't think asset holders really dare to make it difficult to sign for another team for that reason. I actually think tracks genuinely developing riders - by which I mean run training schools and development teams etc.. should be compensated in some way, but it should only extend to riders for a limited period and not indefinitely.

Which just to confuse things, doesn't involve 'junior' footballers at all...

One reason is the fixture list. Britain was really the only country with professional speedway, so tracks needed to run a home meeting roughly every week to pay the riders and to amortise the stadium costs etc.. This obviously meant that every track couldn't ride on the same night. Race nights were somewhat decided by seniority - new tracks coming into a particular league were generally allocated a particular night (or they inherited a race night if they purchased an existing track licence). In more recent years there was more flexibility to choose a race night, but they had to concede that when riding against other tracks with the same race night. So let's say there were two Friday night tracks, the team with least seniority would have to ride against the more senior team at home on a different day, and give up their Friday meeting when riding away to the more senior team. Saturday night tracks generally did better than midweek tracks for crowds, but it very much depends on local circumstances. Tracks in more urban areas seem to be able to run midweek with less effect on crowds than those in more rural areas. I personally preferred Friday racing, but it became increasingly problematic to travel to meetings because of the growing traffic issues. I think Sunday racing has also been confined to lower league racing in Britain. Quite aside from the restrictions on professional Sunday sport until the 1970s(?), Sunday was the day for grasstrack and continental longtrack racing.

If you're referring to a certain journalist, I think some of his assertions have been questionable in the past.

It's not the world of sport which can't operate on the same competitive business principles as the real world. Even the Americans understand that, which is why the NFL (arguably the most successful of the major sports there) is run on what would be perceived as socialist principles anywhere else. The premier competitions of virtually all the major global sports whether football, cricket, rugby or whatever are run by the governing bodies of those sports, and the financial benefits accrue to them. They may partner with other organisations to help organise and promote the events, but the generated profits come back to the sport and are usually redistributed to the member federations and their clubs. The one big exception is F1 which is run by Bernie Ecclestone's company, but he was historically involved in the sport and pays huge amounts to both the FIA and the F1 teams for the promotional rights. By contrast, the premier speedway competitions are run by 2 or 3 private companies that otherwise have nothing to do with speedway. They pay fixed amounts to the FIM and FIM Europe for the promotional rights, but out of that comes the prize money, and the rest disappears internally within those organisations. The promotional companies keep the rest of the money which is lost to the sport. And what risks are these companies actually taking? They contract local promoters to stage most of the GPs, who pay them for the privilege of staging them and incur all the financial risk in the event insufficient fans turn up or its rained off. Those local promoters also get no share in the television and sponsorship money which is kept by the series organisers. So really the only risks are those GPs held in big stadia that are directly promoted, but whilst the Cardiff GP would have been something of a risk 15 years ago, it's well established now. And as for 'doing the work' and Philippe's assertions that I know nothing about event management, I don't think BSI or OneSport are especially professional outfits, whilst the other one which I forget the name of, hasn't even managed to stage an event as far as I know. There have been far too many fiascos down the years, and even at the ones that go ahead, it's apparent that little effort goes into improving the local organisation or promotion at most of the events. Except they haven't. The local promoter in Warsaw was the PZM who copped the flak as they were legally responsible for putting on the event. Nobody is holding up the BSPA as a example of how things should be done, but they're running a different business. BSI and OneSport only have to run a handful of events each year, cherry picking the riders and best dates, and not even having to pay the going rate for top riders. The BSPA members are running grassroots tracks putting on an extensive weekly programme of meetings employing 150 or more professional riders, not to mention the development leagues. There's clearly little vision within the BSPA, far less capitalisation available, but BSI and OneSport do nothing that an international body of promoters couldn't do if they were willing to cooperate. Bring in an experienced commercial manager and contract an experienced promotional and events management company, and then go from there. It's not rocket science, although would need a change of attitude from the various speedway leagues to stop fighting with each other and have a bit of vision with respect to their own collective benefit.

Quite simply because they always rode on Tuesday and Sundays, and rode far fewer meetings anyway because their cost structures are different to those in Britain. The most successful British tracks were Saturday tracks (e.g. Coventry) who were badly affected by the fixture disruption. Britain handled the SGP situation badly, but it also had an inherent structure that wasn't easy to change. And of course, the top riders were still happy to ride in Britain whilst the money was there - only later suddenly finding that there were 'too many meetings on the wrong days' etc.. etc.. And I'm not convinced that Poland and Sweden aren't ruined either. Their leagues are nothing like as successful as there were.

Depends who the sponsorship and television money is going to. If much of it is being taken out of the system by private promotional companies, then it's hardly benefitting the tracks. Television exposure - well the assumption is that it's good, but has it actually brought more fans through the turnstiles? The television companies may be paying fees to televise, and sponsors may be interested because they're getting on television, but again, who does that money go to? BTW - I don't have any great problem with an international pairs competition. I just think it should either be between proper national pairs or alternatively proper club pairs. I also think these sorts of competitions should be promoted by an international association of professional speedway tracks for their benefit.

It's not as good as when there were upwards of 18 different countries entering from Quarter-Finals onwards. GB's period of dominance was largely before my time.

I think it's the best and most interesting international competition. That's why it's a shame to see that it's become a pale shadow of its former self. Which is benefitting who?

Yes, but why did Guestrow go with SEC to start with?

The obvious answer is Guestrow is not willing to put up the necessary dosh, whereas Teterow is.