The decision to award the 35th America’s Cup to Bermuda was not good for everybody.

It has reportedly cost Emirates Team New Zealand some $20 million, and in a team shake-up helmsman Dean Barker has also lost his job.

Barker had been at the helm for the 2017 challenger since 2003, during which time he has been on the wrong end of an America’s Cup defeat on three occassions, the last of which occurred in 2013 when Emirates squandered an 8-1 lead against Oracle Team USA in San Francisco.

Peter Burling, the world Moth champion, and Glenn Ashby, a multiple world champion who served as wing trimmer at the previous America’s Cup, will now share helming duties.

The decision to hold the event in Bermuda in 2017 has reportedly hit the Emirates team’s sponsorship deals, causing a tightening of the purse strings and as a result, the team has had to reduce its remuneration budget and each team member has taken a significant pay cut.

Additionally several million dollars has been axed from the operations budget leading to the scrapping of one of the team’s foiling AC45 catamarans, and the elimination of one of the planned helmsman positions.

If it is of any consolation, Auckland appears to be favourites to host the America’s Cup Qualifying regatta in 2017 after rival host Sydney’s delayed bid fell through.

America’s Cup organisers have yet to announce their decision but are expected to do so in the near future. Under America’s Cup protocol the venue for the regatta was to be confirmed on February 15.

New Zealand are keen to retain Barker’s services, however, and want him to serve as performance manager and sailing coach, with a place on the executive committee, and have made a formal offer to the sailor.

“We’re hoping to retain Dean’s 20 years of America’s Cup experience in Emirates Team New Zealand but we also acknowledge it is time for new blood to be given the chance at the helm of the country’s challenger,” Grant Dalton, the Emirates Team New Zealand CEO, said.

Barker, however, has lashed out at the manner in which he was sacked.

“I am absolutely gutted in the way that I’ve been treated by Team New Zealand and the management in this whole process,” he said. “It’s just been incredibly difficult to understand.

“Through a leak to the media I found out that I’d been dumped as the sailing director of Team New Zealand and today I learned through the media that was in-fact the case.”