The 2012 WRC season commenced in Monte Carlo last month without a promoter after the FIA terminated North One Sport's deal to promote the Championship, claiming the troubled company had breached its contract. Eurosport was widely expected to seal a deal encompassing both promotion and media rights to the WRC and provided the Monte Carlo Rally with television and internet coverage by reaching a one-off contract with the Automobile Club de Monaco. FIA president Jean Todt had said he was confident a solution would be found to the WRC’s promoter problems before the second round of the season in Sweden.
However, the FIA issued a statement on Friday confirming it had withdrawn from negotiations and that talks would begin with other interested parties. Rally Sweden begins on Thursday and it now looks increasingly unlikely that it will be afforded international television coverage. The FIA statement read: “The FIA regrets to announce it has not proven possible to find an international promoter as well as a global broadcaster for the 2012 World Rally Championship season at this stage in time. The Federation has been involved in lengthy and detailed discussions with interested parties but a series of issues proved impossible to reconcile, and it finally had to take the decision to withdraw from these negotiations.”
The statement added: “Teams, manufacturers and the other stakeholders have all been informed of this situation. The FIA will now open discussions with all the other parties which have expressed interest in the promotion of the WRC in order to guarantee the future development and growth of the FIA World Rally Championship.”
Reports have suggested that the FIA may leave individual rally organisers to secure promotion and media partners if a global promoter cannot be secured. However, Ford’s director of European motorsport, Gerard Quinn, has rejected such an idea. “That would be totally impractical,” he told Autosport. “As a long-term solution that would not give the manufacturers, the participants, the organisers or the fans or anybody in the sport what we want. This is a global sport which needs a global promoter.”