Team New Zealand is "set to contest the next America's Cup and look likely to do so without raiding the taxpayers' coffers -- at least for now," according to STUFF. Team NZ Chair Keith Turner said on Wednesday that the team had "reached a point where it had the confidence to mount a challenge for the 35th America's Cup." Turner said the team had "secured sufficient private and sponsorship funding to go to the next stage without needing Government funding to tide them over until bigger money deals set in next year." Team NZ Managing Dir Grant Dalton said the funding had been secured as a "result of hard work which started at the end of the last America's Cup, which was lost to Oracle." NZ Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce said that he "recently advised the board of Team NZ that the Government wanted the team to secure private funding rather than rely on a taxpayer at this time." Joyce added that Team NZ "would submit a revised sponsorship proposal" which the Government would consider "in due course" before making any decisions (STUFF, 6/25).
