NOTE TO SIGNATORIES: You may also be interested in signing another petition I'm running at the minute that calls for Keith Heuwen and Julian Ryder, BT Sport's MotoGP commentators, to be replaced.  You can find it here: https://www.change.org/p/bt-sport-replace-keith-heuwen-and-julian-ryder-as-motogp-commentators  Thanks in advance!

Prior to October 2015, Motor Cycle News (UK) was the publication that supported Valentino Rossi the most.  However, since the Sepang 2015 MotoGP, it appears to have turned against him (despite the now-blocked helicopter footage providing proof that he did nothing wrong) and has printed a number of inaccurate, inflammatory comments and articles that could be seen as attempts to ruin the career that he has spent the last 20 years of his life building.  Examples include the following.

1) MCN's report on the Sepang GP included the headline "Has He Lost It?" and a highly critical column by Mat Oxley.  This resulted in a large number of angry comments being posted on MCN's Facebook page, with one user describing the coverage as "very gutter press" and another saying they had cancelled their subscription for this reason.

2) The Valencia review in the MCN Sport season review ended with the line "Even, as it turns out, he's not very good at coming second", which implied that losing out on the 2015 title was, in itself, the reason for Rossi's anger.  This is not the case; as he explained to the media at the time, it was the fact that the championship was decided unfairly that he had an issue with.

3) In the 30th December 2015 issue, Simon Patterson's report on the Monza Rally contained the paragraph "His reputation might have suffered the same ignominy that saw his championship hopes crumble amid the tumult of the final few MotoGP rounds of the season..."  The fact that Rossi's popularity among the fans remains as high as ever proves that this is not correct.

4) Mat Oxley's article in the same issue included the line "He needs to understand that there's no Spanish conspiracy against him, merely two Spanish riders who want to kick his arse".  This is a particularly low point as, by implication, it calls Rossi's mental health into question (sadly, this is not the first time the paranoia card has been played in this way).  In addition, it may be argued that this comment represents a degree of naivety on Oxley's part.

5) In the Christmas 2015 special, Carl Fogarty stated that "[Rossi's] hero status has been tarnished in recent months".  As with the Valencia review, Rossi's continued popularity proves that this is wrong.

Swipes at Rossi have also been seen in MCN's letters page, with examples here including a letter with the title "Rossi gets my GOAT", in which the writer argued that he cannot be considered to be among the greats because he has never raced at the TT.  In the 6th April 2016 issue, the writer of a letter headed "Rossi should shut up" accused him of "having a hissy fit at anyone he considers a rival" (when, in reality, Rossi's issue was that Jorge Lorenzo broke the rules in the incident referred to in the letter and went unpunished).  Also, the 4th May 2016 issue's letters page contained letters with the titles "MotoGP doesn't need Rossi" and "Rossi should make amends".

Finally, it is highly disappointing to note that MCN appears to have begun attacking Rossi's followers. A recently published letter described them as " knuckledraggers" and in the "Bad Fans" feature in the July 2016 of MCN Sport, they are referred to as "Rossi-crazed loons". While a minority of fans have indeed gone too far in expressing their anger over the events of the 2015 season, to tar all of them with the same brush is unfair.

Publications like MCN should be free to express as wide a range of opinions as possible and Rossi himself once said "The journalists are not there to be your friend".  However, this does not excuse the behaviour described above, which risks being interpreted as victim-blaming and which Rossi and his followers are likely to have been extremely disappointed by.  In addition, there are still many people who rely on the media to tell them what to think and if comments and articles like those above continue to be published, eventually they may be wholeheartedly believed by the majority.  This would have the effect of ending the career of possibly the greatest ambassador motorcycling is ever likely to have and would also send out the message to other riders that if they blow the whistle on things that are wrong in the sport, as Rossi did, they too will be punished for doing so. In addition, fans may begin to feel that they have to conceal their allegiances for fear of being hated and/or abused.  Finally, MCN's own reputation and credibility are being badly damaged by this behaviour.

The Rossi bookazine that MCN published a number of months ago was high quality but represented a missed opportunity to make amends.  We, the creator and signatories of this petition, therefore call on MCN to do the following.

1) Publish a full-page apology on the front cover of a near-future issue of the paper, to include the headline "We're Sorry, Vale...We Did You And Your Fans Wrong".

2) End your working relationship with Mat Oxley and discipline the other journalists involved.

3) Drop your letters page for good; aside from the incidents described here, it has generally become a source of negativity.

4) Make a donation to the Marco Simoncelli Foundation for the harm caused.