Oracle chief executive Sir Russell Coutts has labelled the punishment meted out to his syndicate in the wake of a cheating scandal as "outrageous".



Coutts broke his silence on the decision by the international jury that has cost his team points, sailors and fines ahead of Sunday's opening America's Cup race, and suggested the New Zealand media "had a win" out of the jury.



Coutts offered little more than a three-paragraph statement after jury yesterday delivered the heaviest punishments in the 162-year history of the cup, saying his syndicate "disagreed" with the penalties.



But he opened up to the local San Francisco Chronicle today, clearly angry and worried about the precedent that had been set.



"I'm astounded, to be honest with you, that they penalised the whole team for this," Coutts told the city's biggest newspaper.



"It sets an outrageous precedent for the future. Imagine an Olympic team, and one member infringes a rule. Does that mean the whole team gets penalised?"



The paper also felt Coutts thought the jury might have been swayed by the New Zealand media, which, he said, "had a win out of all this."



With the investigation going on for a month, there was been plenty of time for opinion and innuendo to build ahead of yesterday's historic decision.



Oracle's early acknowledgement of the illegalities meant, in Kiwi minds, penalties were inevitable.



Coutts, a polarising figure in New Zealand, was an easy target as boss of the syndicate.



While the jury cleared him of any wrong-doing, this scandal will have done little to enhance his standing at home.



The America's Cup most successful skipper, he hasn't endeared all of the New Zealand sporting fans by winning two of his four America's Cups with foreign teams after walking out on Team New Zealand after the 2000 victory in Auckland.



The jury was critical of Oracle's management processes during the world series regattas raced in the smaller AC45 catamarans. The jury found the Americans were found guilty of illegally altering both weight and measurements of the boats.



Coutts said: "We had a rules adviser at every regatta. There was a process in place where all race-management issues had to go through him."



But the jury uncovered an email trail that suggested the problem may have been deeper than the five instances they were able to prove.



Oracle's lawyers weren't happy with the process which involved two of the jury members conducting the investigation and then being part of the five-person jury that decided the verdict.



Oracle clearly were keen to explain themselves to local media, with Coutts backing up his thoughts in the San Joes Mercury News,



"We've got penalised two points in the match for something that a few of our sailors did on an AC45 more than a year ago without the knowledge or approval of management or the skippers," he said.



"I think it's an outrageous decision."



But in a sport where honesty is the key value, there will be little sympathy for Oracle in many areas.



There was certainly none of that in the Team New Zealand camp.



Not wanting to get into a to-and-fro scenario with Oracle over the decision ahead of the first race in the match for the cup, Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton simply said he felt the jury had been "very thorough and done "a good job".



While the cup will still be decided on the water and ultimately by the boat with the best speed, the rulings have handed Team New Zealand an advantage.



Oracle now need to win 11 races to keep the America's Cup while Team New Zealand need to win nine to reclaim it.



That's a significant handicap on top of a US$250,000 (NZ$316,000) fine and having four team members slammed with varying bans. The most significant of those was to Oracle's Dutch wingsail trimmer Dirk de Ridder who played a key role on the boat but is now out of the entire regatta.



"This was the first time they've been convicted of any offence," Coutts said of the punished members adding that he regarded de Ridder as "one of the best sailors in the world" who he had "huge respect for".



But the jury didn't see de Ridder that way, "comfortably satisfied" that he instructed two Oracle members to add a lead weight to the forward king post of one of the team's boats. The jury said de Ridder knew the move was illegal and felt he had lied during the hearing.



The story was major news across the United States today and yesterday as the country came to terms with the fact their team had been found guilty of cheating.



All major TV channels and city newspapers and websites carried coverage.



Some have shown scant interest in the buildup to the cup, but they sniffed a major development in a regatta that has been plagued by problems.