PARIS — Max Mosley will soon find out if he can survive a lurid sex scandal and remain president of FIA.
The national federations and motoring bodies that make up the Federation International de l’Automobile will meet in Paris on Tuesday for a special “extraordinary” assembly to vote on whether Mosley is fit to finish his current term.
Mosley called the meeting in early April soon after a British tabloid reported his involvement in an alleged Nazi-themed sex romp with five prostitutes.
A video showed Mosley arriving at a London apartment and then engaging in various sex acts with several women, at least one in a prisoner’s uniform, while also speaking German. Mosley, who is suing The News of the World newspaper in British and French courts, admits to paying the prostitutes but denies there were any Nazi connotations.
“You’ve got to understand, people have sides of that kind to them. But again, I say that as long as it’s adults, consensual, in private it doesn’t hurt anybody,” Mosley told The Daily Telegraph newspaper soon after the scandal broke.
The 68-year-old Englishman has been steadfast in his determination to finish his fourth mandate — to October 2009 — despite calls from federations, motoring bodies, former drivers and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone to stand down.
Mosley says he has received seven letters of support to every one demanding his resignation, though very few people have come out publicly to support him.
“It’s still very open, but we think it will be difficult for Mr. Mosley to stay on,” Kage Schildt, president of Sweden’s national body, said Monday. “The world around us expects Mosley to step down. The world expects it.”
That’s not how Mosley sees it.
“My inclination is to stay and fight,” Mosley has said.
Federations at the FIA headquarters on Tuesday will have to consider whether Mosley’s contributions to motorsport outweigh the tabloid scandal.
Mosley has introduced more environmentally friendly measures to motor racing and the safety improvements he’s carried into the sport are highlighted by the fact that no F1 driver has been killed since 1994 — the same year he first came to office.
But that hasn’t kept Ecclestone and 24 of the world’s leading clubs from publicly demanding recently that the Oxford-educated lawyer resign immediately.
Governing body FIA said 177 of the 220 member federations — which represent 130 countries — will vote, including 19 by proxy.
Mosley has been in public twice since the scandal broke — at the Monaco Grand Prix last week and a rally in Jordan at the end of April. The Crown Prince of Bahrain asked him not to attend the Bahrain GP in the immediate aftermath of the reports.
Mosley is the son of British Union of Fascists party founder Oswald Mosley, a former British politician who served in Parliament for the Labour and Conservative parties. Oswald Mosley died in 1980.
Should a vote go against Mosley, an election must be called within four months.
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