Gisteren verscheen uit het niks de website “mxgpactiongroup.org”. Naar wat ze zelf beweren is het een website gerund door motocross-liefhebbers die het doel hebben om andere motocrossliefhebbers bewust te maken van de fundamentele problemen in het motocross. Ze leggen uit waarom ze vinden dat sommige ontwikkelingen schadelijk zijn geweest en geven eveneens suggesties voor de toekomst.
Wie nu echt achter deze website zit weten we uiteraard niet. Duidelijk is wel dat de persoon(en) die dit hebben opgezet niet over één nacht ijs zijn gegaan. De artikels zijn onderbouwd en het heeft ongetwijfeld uren resource gekost om bepaalde stukken zo adequaat na te bouwen.
Het werkstuk “kosten van deelnamen” liet ons ook enorme ogen trekken. Het was interessant om te zien dat Clément Desalle vorig jaar een dikke 52000 euro is misgelopen en dit enkel en alleen door het uitblijven van prijzengeld (uitgerekend aan het 1998 prijzenbarema).
Natuurlijk is niet iedereen zo blij met deze website, dat bleek uit de mail die elke teammanager, sponsor en andere kregen van Guiseppe Luongo. Deze mail wouden wij u niet onthouden omdat de President van Youthstream ook z’n weerwerk verdient uiteraard.
Dear All,
I have seen that all of you received this e-mail with the link suggesting you go to their web-site.
My e-mail is not to justify any wrong-doing, but as they sent to all of you (who are main partners of Youthstream in the running of the FIM Motocross World Championship) I would like to clarify a couple of points before ridiculous rumors are spread.
This file was built up by political people for political reasons in FIM in 2006, and on this web-site the last date of the extract of the Chamber de Commerce goes up until 2006 (it was published for the first time in 2006, and published again in 2010 when it was sent to MOTOCROSS -the Italian magazine, Motorevue –the French magazine, and Motocross Action –the American magazine). There have been other changes between 2006 to 2013, however there is nothing sinister with these changes and it is public information; everyone with a lawyer can ask an extract to the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and can receive the more up-to-date extract, the same applies for the balance sheet.
If you are interested in the property of Youthstream – which is no secret - it is:
51% Giuseppe Luongo
10% Ursula Luongo
14% Eric Sevenet
10% Luigi Zompetti
10% Philippe Rahmani
5% Nikolaos Gounaris
From the moment the company was created until a few years ago there was often changes in the shareholders for financial reasons; as we were investing a lot of money sometimes we needed finance and we gave shares as guarantees, once we were financially stable again the shares were taken back. You can see on an up-to-date extract from the Chamber of Commerce that it has stabilized since a long time.
It is common knowledge and no secret at all that Gianluca d'Aloja is Youthstream's lawyer and has been since the foundation of the company; before that he was my personal lawyer, and still is. The shares which were in the name of Mr. d'Aloja at the creation of the company were my shares; I'm sure you all know very well a lawyer can represent their client, this is legal and common practice. Following that, in order to avoid mis-understandings and having people play with this, all the shares were put under the name of the real owner.
Maybe you didn't know but the Motocross rights belonged to Dorna until 2003, Youthstream took these rights from Dorna (who was the rights holder until 2026) and YS paid the acquisition to Dorna, FIM had nothing to do with this. FIM only has to acknowledge the sale. The same type of thing happened when Feld bought the Supercross rights from Live Nation, when Infront bought the Superbike rights from Flammini and then sold to Bridgepoint, and when Dorna was sold from CVC to Bridgepoint….
You must know very well how FIM works with its promoters, and it is completely the same for every FIM sport with a promoter (all the FIM contracts between FIM and the promoters are similar): FIM is responsible for the sporting issues, and the promoter own all the calendar, marketing and business rights; in order to change anything within the Regulations it has to be approved by both sides.
As Youthstream is a private company, Youthstream can buy and sell their shares when they want and to who they want.
It's quite ridiculous that in some parts MXGP Action Group show me as a dictator and in other parts as a 'front-man' of someone else – the 2 are completely the opposite. I don't think I need to remind everyone of my career in MX: I organized the greatest MXON at only 26 years old, I created the series Masters of Motocross (which I believe still remains the greatest series in the history of MX) and you should all remember the level of GP Motocross when I took it and you know the level it is today. I think my career and my experience in the promotion of MX talks alone.
I think they love us because they use 2 names which belong to us for their web-site: MXGP and Action Group – it's good to see they like something about us!
I understand that some people with an old vision maybe are unhappy with the improvements YS is making in Motocross, this is human, and for every 10 disappointed people we have thousands who enjoy coming to the races and millions who enjoy watching our races on TV. We know we are talking about making a lot of changes for the future of our sport and these changes are currently being discussed by all involved and clearly we will not what 'Luongo' wishes, we will do what the majority of the stakeholders involved think is the best, this is why there have been a lot of discussions over the last months, and there will still be a lot of talking until June when YS, FIM, manufactures and teams will take the decision to make changes or possibly stay as we are. What is unacceptable is that every time we try to change for the evolution of our sport there are personal attacks to myself and to the company, people try to make blackmail and try to intimidate us, this is unacceptable and for sure they will obtain nothing in this way. YS and myself are always working in full conformity with the law and in agreement with the FIM contract. We intend to take legal action against those who try to destroy the image and reputation of our company and my person.
I think it was important to inform you about this although I see these attacks as a waste of time and I do no not intend on losing any more time (our lawyer will follow this from now), I prefer to concentrate on more important issues.
Kind regards,
Giuseppe Luongo.
President of Youthstream Group.
Tekst: Matthias Van Eeckhoven