Although the official announcement was expected to be made soon, everybody have to wait a little longer.

Although the meeting between Alinghi's Ernesto Bertarelli and Spain's prime minister José Luis Zapatero was defined by both parties as warm and constructive the surprise was to come afterwards, when the minister of Public Administration, Elena Salgado, stated that despite the government's full support of the America's Cup in Valencia, no formal agreement could be signed before the end of August.

According to Salgado, the main issue to be resolved is the structure of the public entity that was formed in order to negotiate the event with America's Cup Management (ACM).

Given the high degree of regional decentralization in Spain, three levels of public administration (central, regional and local) were involved in that entity, called Consorcio Valencia 2007. Half of its board members were named by the central government and a quarter each by the regional and local governments.

The problem lies in the fact that each of the three parties desires a greater level of decision-making and power. Presumably, the central government in Madrid wants the current entity to be dissolved in order to form a new one where its power would reflect its financial involvement.

Obviously, such an issue is time-consuming and cannot be resolved within the next few hours and according to Salgado at least a month will be needed in order to create this new entity and have the cards reshuffled.

Once that is achieved, the signature of the contract with ACM would become a simple formality.