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Concorde AgreementThe Concorde Agreement is a contract which dictates the terms by which the ten Formula One teams compete in Formula One grands prix and take their share of the television revenues and prize money. There have in fact been three separate Concorde Agreements, all of whose terms are kept strictly secret: the first in 1981, another in 1992, and the current agreement in 1997, which is due to expire at the end of 2007. 1981 In 1979, the Commission Sportive Internationale, a organization subordinate to the FIA which was at that time the rule-making body for Formula One, was dissolved and replaced by the Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile, or FISA, which would serve the same function. FISA clashed repeatedly with the Formula One Contstructors Association (FOCA), which represented the teams' interests FOCA's chief executive at the time was Bernie Ecclestone and his legal advisor was Max Mosley, while the president of FISA was Jean Marie Balestre. The two organizations' disagreements, which came to be known as the FISA-FOCA war, resulted in the results of several races to be cancelled. Goodyear threatened to withdraw entirely from Formula One, an event which would have been commercially disastrous for the sport, so Ecclestone organized a meeting of team managers, Balestre, and other FISA representatives at the offices of the FIA in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, France. On January 19, 1981, after thirteen straight hours of negotiation, all parties present signed the first Concorde Agreement, named after the plaza in Paris where the discussions took place. The contract's terms remain largely confidential, though its known stipulations required the signatory teams to appear and compete in every race and guaranteed their right to do so in order to assure the sport's newly-acquired television public that they would have a race to watch. Also, perhaps most importantly, the agreement granted FOCA and Ecclestone the right to televise Formula One races. It expired on December 31, 1987. 1992 1997 In 1997, the teams signed an agreement which was originally due to expire on December 31, 2007. After the 2004 season, the three banks who together own 75% of SLEC, the company which controls Formula One, sued Ecclestone for more control in the sport's finances. The prospect of ousting Ecclestone gave credence to several car manufacturers' threats to form a rival series, the GPWC. On December 7, 2004, at a meeting attended by the bosses of all the teams but Ferrari, Ecclestone offered a payout of 260,000,000 over three years in return for unanimous renewal of the Concorde Agreement, which would guarantee the continuation of Formula One in its present form at least until the expiration of that contract. On January 19, 2005, Ferrari announced its having signed an extension to the 1997 agreement which would expire on December 31, 2012, making a rival championship series much less likely. http://www.itv-f1.com/News_Article.aspx?PO_ID=31921 External links
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