More money troubles for Arrows

[Craig]

NO sooner has Repsol-YPF left Arrows than word comes from the City of London that Eurobet is unlikely to continue supporting Arrows next year. The company is owned by betting firm Coral, which has just had to have a $67m budget top-up from its parent company Morgan Grenfell Private Equity. MGPE is, of course, a partner in the Arrows team but it is hard to see how it can continue to fund the Eurobet sponsorship as the extra costs of marketing and debt payments meant that Coral made a $78m loss last year. The extra funding had to be made available to avoid Coral breaching covenants made with the banks and came about because a planned flotation of the business was called off last year because of adverse market conditions.

Coral spent $45m marketing the Eurobet name in 2000 but repaying the company's debt and pushing the new brand proved to be a heavy burden and the company's promotional budget is much reduced this year. The British betting companies are under pressure from the government to close down offshore operations but argue that it was necessary to compete with Internet gambling firms. The government is currently working on a new taxation system for betting companies, worried that it will lose revenue of around $750m a year if the companies go offshore.

Not good

[Holly]

Normally, I hate it when teams have very little money (not just f1) but the mood i'm in just now, arrows deserve everything they get after their treatment of Pedro dela Rosa, which at the end of the day, came down to money.

[Valve Bounce]

TWR also tried to take Pedro Diniz for a ride but thte court ruled that TWR has to pay Pedor Diniz half a million bucks. and there is no appeal on this ruling. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy There are also reports in the Australian press that because Aussi V8 hot shot Craig Lowdnes left GM's Holden for Ford even though he still has some sort of a 5 year management contract with GM, that TWR is going to sue Craig out of sheer spite. I couldn't get the full storey of TWR's involvement in this row, but I hope TWR falls on his kisser again. Maybe some of my fellow Aussis mught have more on this story.

[steve nielsen]

I think the problems for Arrow are'nt so big:

The Asiatech engines are free, the supertecs cost 30 million $ a year

Orange is staying

Bernoldi brings Red Bull sponsorship(more than Pedro de la Rosa brought last year with Repsol)

Jos Verstappen sponsors are staying(Lost Boys and McM)(btw Enorm is probably out becauso of Bernoldi's Red Bull deal)

Chello is probably staying(they denied ever giving a statement that they would quit)

And there are some rumours about a large dutch company that is going to sponsor Arrows this season (Philips ?)

[Valve Bounce]

You forget: I put a hex on TWR - he will go bald and be struck by a mad cow