About a month before the America's Cup venue is announced, there is a lot of speculation about the possible winner.
The largest Swiss daily newspaper "La Tribune" published its own assessment of the four candidate cities yesterday and believes that Lisbon has the best chances. Valencia cannot be written off yet, but Naples and Marseille are almost out of the running.
The Italian newspaper "La Citta di Salerno", citing internal information, sees Valencia ahead. In any case, it is certain that Napoli no longer have a chance and ran the headline: "Napoli, addio Coppa America".
The French ultra-right scandalous politician Jean-Marie Le Pen apparently also knows more than the rest of the world. Last week, as part of his election campaign for the presidency of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, he said: "Marseille has already lost. Those who want to use the Cup as a springboard for their election campaign will be disappointed. Marseille has never been as open a world harbour as the Spanish and Portuguese ones." Le Pen is considered to have a good chance of winning the presidential election in the spring.
Valencia also has to contend with limited acceptance among politicians. According to the Swiss daily newspaper "Le Temps", although the Spanish bid is supported by the conservative governing party Partido Popular with Prime Minister José Maria Aznar, the opposition is fighting against it. Not against the bid as such, but against the accelerated implementation of a plan to build hydroelectric power plants on the Ebro. Electricity is said to be important in order to fulfil the requirements of the America's Cup management. However, many Spanish scientists, academics and politicians are trying hard to stop the project.
Lisbon and Naples, on the other hand, are said to have the opposition and the governing party on their side without reservation. Their politicians are impressed by the figures presented by the project managers. The Portuguese expect additional revenue of at least 1.5 billion euros for the region between 2004 and 2007. In contrast, the 2004 European Football Championship in Portugal is only expected to bring in 850 million euros.
Lisbon is also hoping for 12,000 to 15,000 new jobs by 2007. Valencia is expecting 10,000 jobs and a financial injection of 1 billion euros, while the French believe in 6,000 jobs and 1.5 billion euros.
The final decision of the America's Cup management is expected in the course of November, at the latest on 15 December.
