LONDON — Motorsport South Africa will vote against FIA president Max Mosley when the organization’s members meet next month to decide the Englishman’s future as head of Formula One’s governing body.
Motorsport South Africa managing director Beaulah Schoeman said Wednesday that her organization has unanimously decided to ask Mosley to step down after being embroiled in a sex scandal exposed by a British tabloid.
“Every single board member agreed that Max Mosley should stand down,” Schoeman told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Johannesburg.
The FIA general assembly meeting is scheduled for June 3 in Paris.
Mosley skipped the Bahrain Grand Prix after the scandal broke, and he also will miss F1’s next event — the Spanish GP in Barcelona on April 27 — after accepting an invitation to attend the Jordan Rally the same weekend.
“Max has been a strong friend and ally to Jordan and has supported us since we announced our bid three years ago, so we are delighted that he will be sharing this historic occasion with us,” said Prince Feisal Al-Hussein, the brother of Jordanian ruler King Abdullah Al-Hussein.
The 68-year-old Mosley has been under pressure to quit since the News of the World reported on March 30 that he participated in sex acts with five prostitutes in a scenario that involved Nazi role-playing. The paper has video excerpts of the episode on its Web site.
Mosley admitted to taking part in the scene, but he is suing the newspaper for breach of confidence, unlawful invasion of his privacy and misuse of private information.
“I haven’t seen the video,” Schoeman said. “The private lives of people doesn’t concern us. … (But it) brings not only FIA, it brings motorsport into disrepute.”
The American Automobile Association has already publicly demanded that Mosley quit, while federations from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Israel have criticized him.
Mosley, however, still claims to have the backing of a large number of federations. He has led FIA since 1993, and his term expires in October 2009.
Schoeman said that she would not be attending the meeting, but that chairman Roger Pearce would be there to cast Motorsport South Africa’s vote. She said all 13 directors on the group’s board were unanimous in their decision.
“I won’t be attending because I can’t justify the time away from here,” said Schoeman, adding she was concerned that FIA was wasting its money by flying the members to Paris and putting them up in hotels for the meeting.
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