Mosley Undeterred By Quit Calls

FIA president Max Mosley has defended his position after 22 motorsport bodies from around the world signed a letter calling for his resignation.

Mosley, who was the subject of newspaper allegations concerning him taking part in a Nazi-style orgy with prostitutes last month, is due to face a vote of confidence from the FIA Council next week which will determine if he sees out the remainder of his term of office which runs until 2009.

Ahead of the meeting, 22 clubs wrote a letter to the Council demanding Mosley’s immediate resignation.

The letter read: ‘We strongly believe that the only respectable way forward for the FIA, and for yourself, is to have an orderly transition, with an immediate agreement and your commitment to step down. Every additional day that this situation persists, the damage increases. There is no way back.’
 
The letter was signed by representatives from America (AAA and AATA), Singapore (AAS), Germany (ADAC), Finland, (AL), Canada (CAA), Brazil (CCB), Denmark (FDM), France (FFA), India (FIAA), Japan (JAF), the Netherlands (KNAC), Sweden (M), Hungary (MAK), Israel (MEMSI), Austria (OEMTC), Spain (RACC and RACE), Belgium (TCB) and Switzerland (TCS).

Despite the increasing pressure, Mosley has insisted he has no intention of stepping down early and that other motorsport clubs are ‘overwhelmingly in favour of my remaining as president’.

The FIA comprises motorsport and motoring bodies from 130 countries with the vote of confidence taking place at an extraordinary general assembly in Paris next Tuesday.

Such is Mosley’s determination to remain in his post that he has also refused a compromise deal allowing him to stand down in November, proposed by a senior body of the FIA – the World Council for Automobile Mobility and Tourism – which would guarantee him victory in next week’s vote.

A defiant Mosley has described the suggestion as ‘the worst possible solution’, adding: ‘I would have resigned, yet still spent the summer carrying out all the day-to-day work with neither the time nor the authority to complete the major outstanding tasks. Better to stop immediately than accept this muddled compromise.’