The team behind the Global Champions League isn’t backing down in the face of the Fédération Equestre Internationale’s promise to continue its legal battle to block the new proposed show jumping team tour in 2016.

The GCL has prevailed in the Belgian courts thus far, but on Nov. 10 the FEI Bureau voted unanimously to continue its fight and outlined its arguments—on the grounds of horse welfare and integrity of sport—in a lengthy press release. 

“Horse welfare and sporting integrity are the two key principles of the unsanctioned events rule,” said FEI President Ingmar De Vos in the statement, “and these principles can only be protected and promoted by putting in place rules, including anti-doping and veterinary regulations, and by making acceptance of international events onto the official calendar conditional upon the Organizing Committee adopting all of those regulations and making them binding on all participants in those events. Without these rules, we have no way of safeguarding the welfare of horses and athletes participating in such events, or of protecting the integrity of the events.” 

But the GCL’s Nov. 14 response, written by Fred van Lierop and addressed to the FEI’s legal director Mikael Rentsch, calls that an “outright misleading” statement; it counters the federation’s expressed concerns and asserts that talk of welfare and fair play may be smoke and mirrors to divert attention from the FEI’s real concern: their commercial interests. 

“…there is no reason why horse welfare and the integrity of competition could not be respected by unsanctioned events, either because the organizers agree to apply FEI regulations pertaining to horse welfare and the integrity of competition, or decide to apply a set of rules which guarantees a level of protection equivalent or higher than the FEI,” the GCL’s statement said. “Contrary to what it likes to profess to the outside world, the FEI does not have a monopoly on horse welfare and the integrity of competition.”

Van Lierop goes on to note that FEI Chief Steward Frances Hesketh-Jones Triulzi praised the Global Champions Tour Paris competition this summer in a video interview. In it, Truizi says, “We always have to keep in mind that it’s essential that there is fair play and that horse welfare is safeguarded at all times. I think that the veterinary team that is here and does most of the other global shows is fantastic. They are dedicated, professional, they are the very top that you can get.” 

The statement adds that since all of the GCL team competitions, which won’t be FEI-sanctioned, will be taking place at the Global Champions Tour events, which are FEI-sanctioned, there’s no reason the FEI can’t enforce anti-doping and medication controls at both if it so desires. Van Lierop says the GCL invited the FEI to do so in August of this year, but didn’t receive an answer. 

“Accordingly, I would like to repeat that invitation,” he says in the statement.

“The FEI Bureau of November 2015 has emphasized once again that the FEI considers it to be its duty as sports regulatory body to protect horse welfare and the integrity of competition, and that this is the reason why it has to adopt a firm stance against the Global Champions League,” the letter states. “Given our invitation, that reason no longer exists. Should the FEI nevertheless decide not to perform its duty and refuse to perform anti-doping and medication controls at the Global Champions League, the only reason for it to do so would be to protect its own commercial interests.”