FIA fail to find WRC promoter
Rallying's flagship world championship sank deeper into trouble on Friday when the governing body said it had been unable to find either a global promoter or broadcaster for the series.
Previous promoters North One Sport had their contract cancelled last month after the parent, Convers Sports Initiatives, went into administration.
The International Automobile Federation said on January 8, 10 days before the season-opening Monte Carlo rally, that it was in urgent talks to secure the staging of the championship but it issued a statement on Friday indicating that had come to nothing.
"The FIA regrets to announce it has not proven possible to find an international promoter as well as a global broadcaster for the 2012 World Rally Championship season at this stage in time," the body said in a statement on Friday.
"The Federation has been involved in lengthy and detailed discussions with interested parties but a series of issues proved impossible to reconcile, and it finally had to take the decision to withdraw from these negotiations."
The FIA said it would finance the timing and tracking of each event to ensure they could go ahead.
"Teams, manufacturers and the other stakeholders have all been informed of this situation," it added.
"The FIA will now open discussions with all the other parties which have expressed interest in the promotion of the WRC in order to guarantee the future development and growth of the FIA World Rally Championship."
The autosport.com website reported that world rally championship commission president Jarmo Mahonen had told individual event organisers that they would have to finalise their own television deals.
The website quoted Ford's director of motorsport Gerard Quinn as saying said that would be "totally impractical" while a team insider added: "This sends us back to the dark ages. How can the FIA ever think this is going to work?"
The next rally is in Sweden from February 9-12.