##Real Club Náutico de Valencia:“The America’s Cup is a good thing for the whole of Valencia.”

The America’s Cup once again has its eye on Valencia following the candidacy presented by the city’s Real Club Náutico to try to host the 37th edition of the competition, which is due to be held in 2024 with Team New Zealand as the defender. However, Cork (Ireland) and Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) are also candidates for hosting the 2024 America’s Cup.

The fact that Team New Zealand wants to announce the venue for the Cup in mid-September means that the project is now in a fight against the clock, with the Town Hall, the Generalitat and the Central Government waiting to study the sustainability project to be presented by the RCNV in the next few days after the first conversations between the parties and with the urgency of closing agreements with the private initiative, which should support the majority of the project.

In fact, in the current context, it has been the economic problems in his country that have meant that Team New Zealand has had to evaluate proposals from abroad to defend its title, with the option of Valencia as one of its favourites due to the experience accumulated in the 2007 and 2010 editions, the infrastructures it has and the weather conditions, with stable wind ranges in a Gulf of Valencia in which the New Zealanders already competed more than a decade ago.

The Valencian bid, developed by Niccolò Porzio di Camporotondo (Founder of H2O Riders Science & Management), Alejandro Fliquete and Carlos de Beltrán (President and Manager of the RCN of Valencia respectively) together with Antonio Alquezar (partner at Redstone Advisory Partners), stated in their official press release yesterday that they have “worked intensely over the last few months to present a sustainable project capable of boosting the sailing sector and obtaining a return for the Valencian Community”.

The New Zealand newspaper Sail-World recently stated that “València has made unexpected progress in recent weeks and they are confident that they have a good proposal to host the next America’s Cup”, although the financing of a project that could be close to 75 million euros has yet to be defined. With regard to the infrastructure costs, the candidature assures in its communiqué that: “the investment would be minimal, as despite the fact that the current bases in the Marina de València are occupied by various companies, the participating teams would be located in new sites that are currently empty”.

Objectives of the RCNV with the Cup

Apart from trying to host a third edition of the America’s Cup, the RCNV explains in its communiqué other objectives it is pursuing with this candidacy: “The great challenge of the Valencian bid is to link the 37th America’s Cup with a long-term plan capable of reactivating the maritime infrastructures built for the 32nd America’s Cup and to position Valencia as a new nautical centre in the Mediterranean. Likewise, the aim of the bid based on environmental sustainability is for the 37th America’s Cup to be an accelerator for the nautical industry, professional training and reactivation of tourism in Valencia, which would place it in a unique position to also be able to access the Next Generation EU funds.

Furthermore, the Spanish bid seeks to stimulate its economic recovery by promoting the Spain Brand to reactivate sectors such as tourism. The Club believes that hosting the America’s Cup would help to accelerate this recovery and would consolidate Valencia as a European hub for the America’s Cup”.

Report by 24/7 Valencia team