Sailing

America's Cup, a complaint in New York raises legal and governance challenges

The America's Cup 2027 in Naples is at the centre of a legal dispute that reopens the debate on the charitable trust nature of the trophy and its governance

by Alex D'Agosta

25 March 2026

America's Cup, presentati i Team a Palazzo Reale a Napoli

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

While Naples accelerates its preparations to host the 38th America's Cup in 2027, the real weak point of the oldest trophy in international sport is re-emerging from New York: its nature as a charitable trust, i.e. a trust asset subject to special rules, not simply an event at the disposal of the winner of the day. It is on this terrain that the action promoted by John Sweeney, a former Cup man and today a contestant of the current model, fits in: an initiative with uncertain outcomes, but sufficient to put the future governance of the event and, with it, the risk profile that accompanies Naples under scrutiny.

John Sweeney is neither a journalist nor an impromptu protester: he is a historic Cup insider, a former top sailor, past campaigns such as America True and Oracle, then active in the recovery and management of IACC boats. He is not neutral, indeed he has for years held a strongly orthodox view of the Cup, hostile to the technological-commercial drift. But precisely for this reason his step deserves attention: he has filed a complaint against the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron with the Charities Bureau of the New York Attorney General, and the file actually exists. The first clarification, however, is decisive: we are not dealing with a case that has already been filed in the Supreme Court, but with a complaint of alleged violations submitted to the Attorney General, who may do nothing, ask for clarifications or investigate further.

To make the picture more cautious there is a further element: the New York precedents frame the Cup within the perimeter of the charitable trust, but the 2026 documents show that the Charities Bureau, at least at an early stage, was still reconstructing the bases and boundaries of its possible intervention. A technical detail that confirms that the matter is still at an exploratory, and not decisive, stage.

Therein lies the first sticking point. The game is not yet the one imagined by social media, nor is it that of those who already fantasise about an imminent stop. This is underlined by Alessandra Pandarese, who now works in the Milanese firm Bsva, but has been close to the America's Cup on a legal level for decades, ever since the Moro di Venezia and then in subsequent campaigns, alongside the team and the organisation: "Today we are faced with a complaint of alleged violations, not with a mature case. The likelihood of swift action against the current Defender remains low; but the vulnerability of AC38 is not so much the current format itself, but the attempt to impose rules on the next Cup as well. In other words: it is not necessarily the case that the challenge in Naples is illegitimate, but it is legitimate to ask whether one can armour today what will come tomorrow'.

The issue of governance

That point is not, or not only, Naples. It is not the foils as such, nor the batteries, nor the taste for a more or less romantic Cup. The serious point is future governance. In fact, the official Protocol published on 12 August 2025 envisages the birth of the America's Cup Partnership and explicitly opens up the possibility of a facility destined to project beyond the Naples cycle. It is here that Sweeney's challenge, though weighed down by excesses and forcings, touches a sensitive area. The Deed of Gift lives in cycles: Defender and Challenger of Record negotiate each time. If the current architecture really pretended to pre-set even the AC39 (dates, places, format, boats) the tension with the logic of the Deed would become real. It is this, not the social caricature, that is the main weakness of the AC38 system.

It is no coincidence that, ever since the first Deed of Gift of 1857, the Cup has been conceived as "perpetually a Challenge Cup for friendly competition between foreign countries", while the text in force today - the Third Deed of 1887 - specifies in an even more legal form that "the Cup is to be the property of the Club subject to the provisions of this deed", and not of the owners of the winning boat. In those two formulae there is still today all the symbolic and legal force of the Cup: the trophy does not belong to individual financiers or managers of the moment, and the challenge must remain contestable, not turn into a system stabilised once and for all. That is why the question that emerges from New York, although far from any definitive outcome today, is less outlandish than many would prefer to think: how far can commercial modernisation go without formal clarification from the jurisdiction governing the trust? One wonders, then, whether at least some of the latest bowls handled by New Zealanders have not already been on the extreme edge (if not beyond) the rules permitted by the Deed of Gift.

The history of the Cup teaches that New York is never a theoretical backdrop. In the case Mercury Bay v. San Diego Yacht Club, between 1988 and 1990, the dispute over the Stars & Stripes catamaran and the New Zealand maxi monohull went all the way to the Court of Appeals: the Cup was raced in 1988, but its legal interpretation continued and ended after the race, in 1990. In the Golden Gate Yacht Club v Société Nautique de Genève litigation between 2007 and 2010, the 33rd edition remained effectively frozen for years around the validity of the challenge and the role of the Challenger of Record. The precedents say two things at once: the New York courts can indeed affect the timing and shape of the Cup; but they also say that, before doing so, a much sounder basis than a public campaign is needed, and usually much more robust documents than are publicly available today.

It is here that the Sweeney case splits in two. On the one hand there is real merit: he has rekindled a question that many in the system tended to evade, namely whether the America's Cup Partnership and confidential team agreements are stretching the Deed of Gift to its elastic limits. On the other, there is a questionable method: having moved alone, too early and too noisily, broadening the attack from future governance to an almost total theory of the Cup (from venue to AC75, from tonnage to the historical validity of the Deeds) risks making its case more ambitious on paper than manageable in practice. In this sense, the initiative is both clever and clumsy: the basic idea is serious, the execution remains to be proven.

For Naples, meanwhile, the risk is not only legal. The city is hosting an event of historic magnitude, desired for decades and perfectly consistent with its maritime vocation. But precisely because of this, the margin for error is reduced. The project is grafted onto Bagnoli, an area that still bears the weight of incomplete reclamation, fragile governance and social conflicts that have never been fully resolved. The most recent chronicle recounts an impressive acceleration of works and, at the same time, very real fears about reclamation, viability, social impact and the permanence of infrastructures born as temporary. In such a delicate framework, even a legal vulnerability that is not immediately lethal can turn into a reputational risk, caution on the part of sponsors and increased uncertainty for public and private stakeholders.

That is why the question is not whether Sweeney will win. The point is why his action finds such fertile ground today. The Cup is not an accomplished crisis: it is a convergence of tensions. Tension between Deed and commercial governance; between political speed and institutional complexity; between the promise of legacy and the need for transparency. If the organisers really want to protect the Naples 2027 edition and, at the same time, the historical value of the event, the smartest response is not to close themselves in silence or treat any criticism as hostility. It is to raise the level of transparency. Make the relationship between trusts, protocol, agreements and the allocation of resources more legible. In an event of this scale, destined for an area that deserves to express it at its best, governance must be at its best before the boats.