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TNZ directors hit back at Coutts
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (CNN) -- The former directors of Team New Zealand have hit back at criticism from ex-skipper Russell Coutts with the America's Cup Match just days away. Coutts, now skipper of Swiss team Alinghi, said negotiations had broken down after the America's Cup in 2000 when he, with colleagues Brad Butterworth and Tom Schnackenberg, wanted to take over leadership of the syndicate. (Full story) Team New Zealand, skippered by Dean Barker, will defend the cup against Alinghi from February 15 in Auckland. In a nine-page response to Coutts and Butterworth, five former directors -- Tom Clark, Roger France, Richard Green, Jim Hoare and John Lusk -- said the pair had been "intimately" involved in the transition process and had been given extensive support from within and without Team New Zealand. "It is very sad that in order to justify their change of heart to New Zealanders they seek to misrepresent the facts and malign directly or by implication Sir Peter Blake, the former board and management of Team New Zealand and its major sponsors." Sir Peter Blake was the chief executive officer of Team New Zealand. He had won the cup in 1995 and retained it in 2000, with Coutts. Blake was killed by pirates while on an environmental trip to the Amazon in 2002. Coutts and Butterworth abruptly left Team New Zealand shortly after winning the cup, prompting anger among many New Zealanders who felt the pair were being disloyal. The antagonism had re-surfaced as the Louis Vuitton Cup progressed from October 2002 and the victorious run by Alinghi. They quit TNZ after failing to reach an agreement over the management of the next defence with the trustees who controlled the syndicate, Coutts said. However, the former directors said the pair "left as a matter of choice, even though they signed up to a transition process, which at that stage was well advanced." The directors said it was "simply not correct" for Coutts and Butterworth to claim they had tried for two years to make a transition agreement work. "They were asking for something that was not legally and practically possible." A major factor in the disharmony "was the failure by Coutts and Butterworth to recognise that it was the sponsors who primarily funded the campaign," the directors said. Coutts deliberately flouted his sponsorship obligation on several occasions, the directors said.
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