America's Cup announce further departures

Reshuffles and departures at the top have been followed by cuts of a further 28 people in the America’s Cup executive team.

Chief executive Stephen Barclay has announced that half will go from the central organisation in San Francisco, where the defending Oracle team will stage the event in July, August, and September next year.

The other half will be culled in other parts of the world. Severance packages were in place for all the people who had been informed of staff reductions on Friday, said Barclay, who replaced Richard Worth last week.

“We must ensure that our expenses match revenues. We made these changes to create efficiencies necessary to ensure that we deliver an exciting and important event for both the world of competitive sailing and San Francisco,” Barclay added.

He was hopeful that a revised plan to use Piers 30 and 32 to house up to five challenger teams would be approved by San Francisco’s 11-strong Board of Supervisors. So far three teams, Sweden’s Artemis, Italy’s Luna Rossa, and Emirates Team New Zealand have met the deadline of 1 June.