Britain's leading free-to-air broadcasters "expressed reservations on Thursday about the sporting merits and future prospects of next month's inaugural European Games in Baku," according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. Europe's first continental multi-sport event "will be hosted in the Azeri capital from June 12-28 and televised in Britain on BT Sport." Speaking at a Daily Telegraph Business of Sport conference, BBC Dir of Sport Barbara Slater "sounded unconvinced about the event's appeal to viewers in an increasingly crowded marketplace." Several federations "are planning their own European sports championships for 2018, a year before the second edition of the European Games." Slater said, "The 'A list' athletics championships and a host of other European championships will be held to try and create something which I suppose is bigger than the sum of its parts, which is very much what is the motivation behind Baku." Athletics "will be represented in Baku only with a third-tier event, while swimming will be equally low key." ITV Dir of Sport Niall Sloane said that "the Games were of little interest to him." Sloane: "We understood the progression from this year to the second event and how they would build on it but it still didn't make any financial sense" (REUTERS, 5/14). In London, Ben Rumsby wrote Sloane launched "a stinging attack" on the BBC, claiming, "There are swathes of people doing jobs which don't need to exist and doing them in a mediocre way." Sloane "hit out during a panel discussion" at the Telegraph conference. Sloane, who left the BBC six years ago after being beaten by Slater to the director of sport job, said, "The license fee is probably the least-worst solution to having a broadcaster like the BBC in some shape or form. I go back to what I've argued. At the BBC, long and hard, I argued within the BBC -- I was in the BBC as well -- there is just far too much management. It's astonishing" (TELEGRAPH, 5/14).
