The spy or the ex-team members described as "informants" are still unnamed, but the Cup defenders from Emirates Team New Zealand have already gone through with it, terminated the relevant employee contracts and publicised the internal Kiwi affair. This has certainly also happened because the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Affairs has launched an investigation and there are apparently serious allegations against Emirates Team New Zealand. An initial statement issued by the Kiwi team management today (Monday) reads:
"Six months ago, Emirates Team New Zealand and ACE (America's Cup Event Ltd.) suspected that we had informants in the event organisation (ACE). This suspicion was confirmed when we recently received confidential and sensitive information back from Europe.
The motives of these informants, who had access to the headquarters of Emirates Team New Zealand, can only be surmised at this stage.
Furthermore, these people have made highly defamatory and foul allegations against ACE, ETNZ and its staff in relation to financial and structural matters.
These accusations are completely false.
As a result, the contract with the informants was terminated.
Although the allegations are unfounded, the MBIE (ed.: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in New Zealand) has no choice but to launch an investigation, despite our belief that the whistleblowers' motives are extremely suspicious.
We are working closely with the MBIE to quickly resolve the remaining problems together.
Emirates Team New Zealand and ACE will not allow this matter to set us back in our defence of the America's Cup and hosting a great event next summer (ed.: winter in Europe)."
The case was made public on Monday morning German time. It is expected that there will be more information on the case in the evening German time when New Zealand wakes up again.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
