Bahrain GP Debate

[RasputinLives]

As did not buying their apples. So lets stop buying their oil and any F1 team with a Bahrainian connection should be kicked out the championship. Oh dear.

I agree with both you guys something needs to be done but considering the amount of money thats ties up in F1 that has come from a Bahrainian source that has probably been earned due to the oppression of its people just not holding a Grand Prix there seems pretty hypocritical doesn't it?

I agree its a start but lets remember the entire sporting world was taking a stance on the South African situation and thats what had the impact. Even though F1 didn't race their last year it was still supporting the regime because a big part of it is funded by the regime.

I say ban them from the Olympics, ban them from F1 and stop buying their exports. That would make a true impact but its just not going to happen because they have the one thing the western world needs. Oil.

 

[Kewee]

Well said Kewee.I would urge all members to read just how influential the banning of test cricket in South Africa during the apartheid years.This had a geat impact on the isolation of South Africa and had a marked influence on the death of aparthied.

Very true sportsman. We eventually broke our rugby contacts with them also, after New Zealand nearly tore itself apart with some for the Springboks tour and others against. I was living in London at the time thankfully. I've said on this thread earlier you can't isolate yourself from the troubles of countries you have sporting contact with, and neither you should. Bernie obviously closes his mind to such trivial little issues.

 

[Kewee]

Rasputin......I know what your saying but in business there's a price to pay for poor decisions and F1 is a business after all.
Bahrain just needs to have the point driven home that they also have a price to pay until they make changes for the good of all their people. This talk that if the GP gets cancelled for two years in a row they will lose it permanently is nonsense. Bernie makes the rules and can modify them accordingly, then return to Bahrain when their very serious issues have been resolved.
The point you make regarding oil is catch 22. They need the revenue from oil as much as the West needs their oil so they'd hurt even more than we would.

 

[RasputinLives]

But where do you stand on the fact that Mclaren are 50% owned by a Bahrainian company? Surely action should be taken there too right?

 

[Kewee]

Should action be taken against McLaren, no of course not. As I said, in business poor decisions have consequences. Their's is a private business decision, they're not a Government department. It's entirely up to McLaren and its shareholders to judge the wisdom of their link to Bahrain. Your example is very apt in fact. If the situation deteriorated dramatically in Bahrain and shareholders in the UK started to feel uncomfortable and began selling their shares, then you have a perfect example of a business decision turning on you and costing you dearly.

 

[RasputinLives]

The point I was making that where South Africa was concerned both in sport and in business (and the music industry as well) there was pretty much a blanket ban on anything involving the regime or people within the regime. Thats what hurt it.

Not going for a Grand Prix there whilst paying hand over fist for their oil and happily letting them fund and dictate major sporting teams will not have the desired effect at all.

It'd be like holding a work strike on a sunday or something.

 

[GeoffP]

Political motivations aside there are two points that should be discussed openly in going to Bahrain:

1) Can the local authorities guarantee the safety and ability to carry out the race?
2) Will the enforcing of (1) specifically drive more of the behaviour that has caused the unrest and negative attention on the country?

I suspect they may be able to deliver point (1), but I think it will be at the expense of point (2).

This tends to imply that the F1 has a direct relationship with the current unrest in Bahrain and so should look to itself to see if there should be an F1 race in Bahrain.

 

[Kewee]

The point I was making that where South Africa was concerned both in sport and in business (and the music industry as well) there was pretty much a blanket ban on anything involving the regime or people within the regime. Thats what hurt it.

Not going for a Grand Prix there whilst paying hand over fist for their oil and happily letting them fund and dictate major sporting teams will not have the desired effect at all.

It'd be like holding a work strike on a sunday or something.

Couple of points Rasputin. The sports that were involved in isolating South Africa were, at the time, very much amateur. Money was secondary, South Africa was losing it's opportunity of showing its sporting excellence and the pride that went hand in hand with their achievements. That was a bitter pill for them to swallow.
Returning to Bahrain. The oil argument is irrelevant. They need the oil revenue as much as the west needs their oil.
Regarding McLaren. They're a private company, with shareholders of course, who should be left alone to make their own business decisions, good and bad. In the long term they'll benefit from their good decisions and be judged on their bad. That can end up being very costly but no one should interfere with the running of a private business.

 

[RasputinLives]

Ok but say for instance in some sort of time warp the German Nazi party were magically in power now and a few of Hitler's high ranking party memebers, lets say, Himmler and Goering bought 50% shares in Mclaren you wouldn't call for action to be taken against the team in protest? What if Robert Mugabe bought Toro Rosso? call for action then? Isn't their some rules and regs regarding who is fit and proper to be running an F1 team?

I understand why nothing is being done but I don't understand how you can call for action against one and not the other.

 

[teabagyokel]

They need the oil revenue as much as the west needs their oil.

Yes, that is why it would hurt if the West did not buy their oil.

Formula One is being criticised for not opposing Bahrain, but what about NATO. And I find the media silence about Bahrain when Formula One is not the issue deeply unsettling, especially compared to the wall-to-wall coverage of Syria.

 

[sportsman]

[quote="teabagyokel, post: 123324, member: 26" And I find the media silence about Bahrain when Formula One is not the issue deeply unsettling, especially compared to the wall-to-wall coverage of Syria.[/quote]

That depends where you look.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/201241702750707818.html
Rights violations continue in Bahrain and the government's response to the findings of an international commission of inquiry have proved inadequate, Amnesty International has said.
In a report released on Tuesday, the rights group found that Bahrain had failed to achieve justice for protesters with the piecemeal reforms implemented following the November 2011 report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI).
The BICI, set up by King Hamad bin 'Issa Al Khalifa submitted a hardhitting report of its investigation into human rights
violations committed in connection with the anti-government protests last year.
It found that security forces had used excessive force to suppress protests and tortured detainees to extract confessions.
Amnesty's investigation found that despite some institutional and other reforms, Bahrain's overall response to those findings has been inadequate.
"The authorities are trying to portray the country as being on the road to reform, but we continue to receive reports of torture and use of unnecessary and excessive force against protests. Their reforms have only scratched the surface," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director.
"The government's huge financial investment in international experts to help them reform will go to waste unless it shows real political will to take difficult decisions - in particular, holding to account senior members of the security forces accused of
violations, releasing prisoners of conscience and addressing the underlying discrimination against the Shia majority population."
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse protesting crowds on Monday, as they gathered to show their anger against the government and the planned race.

 

[teabagyokel]

Aye, it does. But I'm particularly thinking the BBC. In four months time, see how often the violence in Bahrain is mentioned. Between the 2011 cancellation and last week, I hadn't seen Bahrain mentioned once on BBC News.

 

[Kewee]

Rasputin........

No, there are no regulations regarding ownership and nor should there be. Your examples regarding Nazi Germany and Mugabe are no different and would fall into the category of dreadful business decisions which would ultimately destroy a company.
It's very different regarding decisions made by FOM. Their decisions affect every team on pit lane and the entire sport, McLarens decisions only impact on their own company.
I have a good understanding of business ethics and their consequences. I manufacture and sell high quality diamond jewellery. I only purchase diamonds from legitimate trading companies that adhere to the Kimberly Process which means the diamonds I sell are guaranteed to be conflict free, a guarantee I provide in writing to cover every diamond I sell. This simply means I don't trade in blood diamonds. I'm not required to do this by law. There are no regulations in the industry preventing me from purchasing from illegitimate diamond traders operating on the fringe of the industry but if I were to do so, I'd have to remove all guarantees from any promotional material relating to my company. The result would be obvious. Instead of selling diamonds, lots of diamonds, my business would struggle to survive. That is just another example of business self regulating. Good companies don't need people telling them how to run their business, and Mclaren are a good company. Incidentally Ron Dennis and TAG are partners in the company, the Bahrainian involvement is as a minority shareholder. I don't know anything about the working relationship between McLaren and TAG but would imagine McLaren would be the majority shareholder to enable them to retain the ability to run their own company.

 

[Kewee]

I don't know how much control they have, but they certainly own 50% of the stock in McLaren...

Wrong! They've never had a 50% shareholding in McLaren.
The company is owned by Ron Dennis, TAG, with a minority shareholding held by Bahrain. Up until last year Damiler still held a small shareholding, about 11%, though I'm not sure whether they still do. Any company has to be very careful regarding shareholding and how shares are structured to make sure they're not in danger of losing control of the day to day running of their business.

 

[FB]

I hate to burst your bubble Kewee but according to Wiki (via Joe Saward who I would credit as a reliable source) RD owns 25%, TAG 25% and the rest belongs to Mumtalakat Holdings.

The shares were divided between the other shareholders, with the Mumtalakat Holding Company currently holding 50%, and Ron Dennis and the TAG Group holding 25% each.[12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Group#Ownership

Mumtalakt holdings is wholly owned by the Bahrain government. From their website:

Mumtalakat is the investment company for the Kingdom of Bahrain, and was established in June 2006 by Royal Decree as an independent holding company for the government of Bahrain’s strategic non-oil and gas related assets. Mumtalakat was created to align and implement the execution of the government’s initiatives to pursue value-enhancing opportunities, improve transparency and help achieve operational excellence for its state-owned non-oil and gas related assets. Mumtalakat holds stakes in over 35 commercial enterprises, representing a portfolio value of approximately BD 3.3 billion (U.S.$8.8 billion) as of June 30, 2011 and spanning a variety of sectors, including aluminium production, financial services, telecommunications, real estate, tourism, transportation, and food production.

http://www.bmhc.bh/en/1/about-us.aspx

 

[RasputinLives]

Which kind of backs up what I'm saying. I bet the Bahrain regime makes a lot more money out of being part of Mclaren than they do from running a Grand Prix so why protest about one and not the other.

Don't get me wrong I would hate to see any action taken against the Mclaren team but with all this talk about South Africa - South Africa was a blanket ban - This wouldn't be so the effect it would have is very minor.

 

[Kewee]

To FB and Rasputin........

It would take far more than Wiki to burst my bubble. Wiki has been proven time and time again to be incredibly unreliable.
The structuring of shares and in fact the structure of the entire McLaren Group is far more complex than anything written in Wiki, and Wiki's description of the break down of shares leaves as many questions unanswered as answered. One question springs to mind. Would a share portfolio buy you shares in the entire McLaren Group or are one or more of the companies several divisions, such as McLaren Racing a separate entity that cannot be touched. Was the division of shares described, a division of the entire company shareholding, or a division of the 40% bought back from Daimler. You can be sure nothing will be as straight forward as it seems. The structure of a company and its shares are always complex, even small companies. It's very easy for someone on the outside to add percentages together and come up with 50%, I doubt very much that it would be that simple.

No Rasputin it doesn't back up what your saying at all. Decisions made by FOM affect every team and every aspect of Formula One, including broadcasters and sponsors. The decisions regarding McLaren affect one company. The two cannot and should not be lumped in together and treated as though they're one and the same. They're not.

 

[FB]

I agree that Wiki is not the most reliable of sources, hence why I referenced the original quote coming from Joe Saward, For your reading pleasure here is a link to Joe's article:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/the-politics-within-mclaren/

You can choose to believe this or not. Up to you, I really don't care that much but until you come up with something which tells it differently I'm going with the information available.

 

[FB]

Oh, and just for your additional viewing pleasure, BMCH.BH list both McLaren Automotive and Mclaren Group as companies within its share portfolio.

http://www.bmhc.bh/en/17/portfolio.aspx

As to whether this holds any sway in the decision of F1 to go to Bahrain it certainly seems to suggest that it is more than Bernie and FOM who have a vested interest to race there. Aren't Ferrari and Mercedes also supported by Middle East money? Maybe not from Bahrain but I'll bet there are links between all the ruling families across the region. Haven't Saudi Arabia been supporting the Bahrain government?

 

[Kewee]

FB.......

To retain control of your company you must retain a 51% shareholding or have a watertight agreement with a partner giving you that 51%. Fifty percent is not enough. What your suggesting is that Ron Dennis has signed over his entire lives work to a foreign investor, in a foreign country, with a foreign culture, in a potentially unstable part of the world. That is exactly what your saying. I for one don't believe Ron Dennis has gone completely mad, not yet anyway. None of us are sitting at the table at a McLaren board meeting so none of us know how they structure their business but as I say, things are very rarely as simple as they may appear. My business is completely transparent, very honest and very straight forward, but oh how I wish it wasn't so complex.