Humphrey Appleby

You could add the (old) BLRC to that as well, and of course there was the Mickey mouse Champions Cup. I think though, it's less of an issue if they're clearly different focuses and formats. So it's the best riders in the world minus Australia? Makes it even worse. Ideally there should be a clear hierarchy in competition structure, although with speedway primarily being European based it blurs the issues.

Yes, but that's clearly for a different set of riders, although it's not inconceivable that one or two U21 riders would be good enough to ride in the SGP. In the old days, it wasn't possible to compete in both the WC and WU21 (or at least the later rounds), and in my opinion that's the way it should be now. The difference is the SEC could conceivably feature exactly the same riders as the SGP, or as we've seen, potentially poach riders from the 'higher' competition. Not good for the sport at all, although we shouldn't ignore the issues with the current SGP arrangements. The manner of their attacks on BSI, their presentation of how great they are in comparison, their protestations of victimisation and being hard done by the authorities, how the Poles are so badly treated by a 'British' company, and so on... This mess was created by the FIM and their idiot offspring at FIM Europe - I don't blame BSI or OneSport for seeing the opportunities and taking them - but the companies involved should behave with respect and professionalism towards each other.

Indeed, but the problem is should the European Championship stay as a second level title or be allowed to effectively competing with the World Championship? There may well be issues with the current SGP arrangements, but introducing rival series is not the way forward in the long term either.

The track reserves will generally be local, so that's pretty easy money. However, $3,400 (currently £2,000) to pay for travel, accommodation and equipment for your team - not exactly going to be much left unless you do it Andy Smith style.

What money are they actually investing? Whilst there's some overheads involved in running the GPs, and I'd imagine they're taking some financial risk on the GPs they run themselves, it wouldn't seem to be a capital intensive business given they rent stadiums, plant and bring in production facilities as needed. There's maybe the air fence, shale and promotional paraphernalia, but what what else?

Appreciating you're just the messenger, but what a load of ridiculous propaganda. OneSport don't make themselves look very credible by issuing these sorts of statements.

It's not several million - it's around 1.5 million per year to the FIM which I think is linked to the number of events staged. A figure that you have yourself previously acknowledged.

So we keep hearing, but yet we've never seen any sort of figure. Sponsors and recipients are normally very happy to trumpet how much they're paying. It'll come out eventually anyway, when we see the revenue for 2013. The newspaper business is heading towards a slow death - not even worth worrying about. Not even convinced about TV given that fewer and fewer people, especially young people, are watching nowadays. F1 is still on major channels at reasonably prime time, and is still associated with glitz and glamour. Speedway is not and never will be, and if the likes of Sky don't really see it as a value proposition, then it's difficult to see where it goes from here.

Yes, yes, but who owns the FIM? The national federations no doubt, so it's a circular argument. Years ago, the FIA insisted it owned the rights to the Formula 1. The teams led by Bernie Ecclestone decided there was no show without them, and took effective control of the sport along with most of the money. That's what speedway should have done, and should do now. I'd agree it's not BSI's job, but the various speedway authorities (or the FIM on their behalf) should have ensured they directly benefitted from some of the revenue coming in from the sport's premier events. With respect to global profile, I don't think the sport has any more of a profile now than 10 years ago - at least not in any meaningful (financial) sense. SGP revenue has only increased about 50% in real terms in that time, despite there being twice the number of GPs. Crowds are much the same as they ever were, even though a couple of prestigious venues (and one less than prestigious venue) have been added. Maybe things would be worse without BSI's involvement - that would be a fair argument - but I don't think it can really be said it's taken either the SGP or the sport as a whole to new heights. In fact, the rest of the sport remains in decline, possibly even in Poland. And just what sponsors is it actually bringing in? The list of SGP sponsors seems to decline year-on-year, mostly consisting of the tourist boards and companies of the millionaires subsidising the GPs, media partners, equipment suppliers, and maybe one recognisable global name which may or may not actually be paying real money for the privilege. Maybe it's benefitting the rider sponsorships, although at least a couple of riders have now broken ranks either because the benefits of the SGP are insufficient, or because their sponsors actually want them to ride elsewhere. Rarely do you hear of an F1 driver withdrawing because they prefer to drive in the European Touring Car Cup, or having to moonlight in British F3 to pay the bills, and that I think sums up how far things have actually advanced in 12 years. Maybe speedway is just too niche and esoteric to be sellable to any degree, but neither have BSI performed any sort of miracles. BSI would probably argue that's the job of the local GP organiser, except the ones they directly organise. They get their money from the staging fees, sponsors and television money, so why spend money on local advertising when ultimately it's the local promoter taking the risk?

In today's mobile world, I don't really see it as a problem to change national teams once - especially between youth and senior level. What you want to avoid is nationality tourism, with competitors chopping and changing as if national teams were club sides. In the long run though, I think national sides are going become a bit of irrelevance. Clubs having paid so much money are going to be increasingly reluctant to share those assets with for virtually no compensation, and if there's effectively a transfer market between national sides it all becomes a bit pointless.

The SGP is 2-3 times more meetings than if a rider did the old WC and reached the Final. For a British rider, 3 or 4 of those rounds would generally be in Britain, and even for Scandinavian and Continental riders the earlier rounds were relatively regionalised. We all know that the old WC didn't pay much, but there was much less of financial commitment needed, especially if you weren't successful and went out. The SGP is probably okay for the riders at the top end who can pull in decent sponsors, but it's long been known that it's a marginal existence for those in the lower echelons. The bottom line is that regardless of what OneSport's intentions actually are, the SEC wouldn't even get a look in if there's wasn't some disgruntlement among riders about what they're getting out of the SGP. Agree that OneSport seem like a cowboy outfit though, not that I'm any fan of BSI either...

The old World Championship meant 4 or 5 meetings, most of which were usually in your own backyard and only once was the final held outside of Europe. The SGP is clearly a much bigger commitment.

The national speedway authorities allowed their premier event to be sold by the FIM for no benefit to themselves - unless of course you know how the money paid to the FIM is allocated? As for correct balance, I don't think I've ever seen any serious analysis from yourselves of whether the FIM/BSI arrangement is good for speedway, why OneSport has entered the arena, or anything but the mildest criticism when GPs were cancelled or nearly cancelled because the shale was left in the wrong pyramid shape.... They had 12 years to 'achieve more' before SEC came along.

No, she's only the supreme governor in England. The Anglian Church was disestablished in Wales, and neither is the Church of Scotland an established church. AFAIK, the Queen has nothing to do with the Anglian Church outside of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is recognised as the spiritual leader of all Anglicans, but has no power beyond the Church of England.

But we're left to piece together the politics ourselves...

Grands Prix and pints of milk are entirely different things. Firstly, a pint of milk is a commodity and millions get sold. There's a limit to what you can charge for a pint of milk because otherwise consumers will go to another provider, and likewise its impractical to assess the ability of a customer to pay because of the small margins involved. The milk supplier simply hopes to sell a lot of milk and make their money that way. Even with commodities though, different prices get charged in different areas. These are noticeably cheaper in the North-East of England compared to the South-East of England because average incomes are lower, as well as the overheads of selling the commodities. There is no law or rule that says the same price has to be charged from region-to-region, and it wouldn't be sensible to have one. The store that sells the milk is different though. There are a relatively limited number of properties available, and even fewer in prime locations to attract the walk-in (or drive-in) customer. That's why the landlords are able to charge higher rents for the prime locations, and it's the same for living accommodation in desirable areas, and numerous other non-commodity products. GPs are essentially bespoke products - restricted in supply because there's a practical limit on the number of hosts, availability of riders, and how often people are willing to attend or otherwise watch a GP. Equally, there is a certain moral obligation for a World Championship series to spread itself around a number of countries, even if spectator and financial interest varies widely from place-to-place. Given these circumstances, it would be marketing folly to not maximise revenue in popular markets, especially if cities in a particular area or country are willing to compete with each other for the right to host. The bottom line is that Polish cities were perfectly willing to pay the asking prices for years, but now only complain when realise they can't make any money. Well I have little sympathy - that's what doing due diligence is about - and equal laws and rules conveniently seem to go out the window in the Polish League when clubs are paying silly money to poach riders from each other. This does not mean that I believe speedway's premier event should should be run in the manner that it is. I think it's ridiculous that the long-term rights were given away to a private corporation with no obvious benefit to the sport, but that's a different matter to how revenue is raised. The Polish authorities (amongst others) were seemingly happy to let it happen years ago though, and have collectively signed away the rights until 2021 or so. If the prices are too high though, then there's no obligation to stage GPs.

The same as if you lease a shop on the high street as opposed to a back lane. You're likely to get more customers and the lessor knows they can charge more for the lease as a result.

They charge Polish venues more because they get better crowds than just about everywhere else. Bottom line though, if cities are daft enough to pay the asking rates then they have no one to blame but themselves. If they all stuck together and agreed a maximum price then BSI would have to reduce it's going rates, but until the economic downturn the cities were all happy to outbid each other for a GP.

Rules are already pretty concrete in cricket, and there are qualification periods if you want to change nationality. A lot of the Saffers in the England team qualified for British passports through parentage, and in some cases even spent their formative years in England. We should be encouraged that players want to play for England, and if they legitimately qualify for British citizenship, then I can't see what other qualification process you can put in place. Maybe the ability to drink 10 pints of warm beer a night...?

Patriality only gives you right of abode, not citizenship, although it's relatively easy to get once you've stayed 4(?) years.

I believe he had dual Norwegian-Polish citizenship.

What's the point of having inside knowledge if you can't tell anyone anything until an official announcement is made? Journalism used to be about finding stories and breaking the news first.

You can race for another country in individual competitions with just their national licence, but I think you need to have a passport from the country you're racing for in team competitions.

This is another prime story of wider interest to the sport that could be examined, but it would seem that we have to wait for regurgitated official announcements.

I guess there will be a full report in the Star on the matter then?