The Rebel Tour

The rebel tour camp spoke to grindtv five days ago*. The interview offers an insight into the rebel camp’s confidence and ambitions, but does not address the past lawsuits that were filed against rebel boss Mat Tinley, which I wrote about in The Australian this week. This is not the only statement to come from the rebel camp this week. Kelly emailed me at The Australian yesterday, saying, among other things, that there might be a year of chaos in pro surfing before the dust settles. The comments in the grindtv interview include some key points, not least of which is in the final paragraph: “Our discussionswith the brands are progressing, there’s substantial interest fromglobal consumer brands.” The rebel tour was always going to depend on its ability to seduce big global brands from outside surfing to come aboard as advertisers. Now it’s getting “substantial interest”? I’d like to see that. – Fred Pawle

* Thanks to the alert readers who pointed this out earlier. And “Walkley Award”, I have read the lawsuit to which you refer. It is a publicly available document, but not covered by the qualified privilege extended to court reports. Without Tinley’s right of reply, I can’t publish it. Tinley has so far declined all invitations to discuss this and other matters regarding his rebel tour challenge.