Stubborn and controversial FIA head faces accusations of Nazi role-playing, angered sponsors & racing teams

By David Mirsky

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 7/12/08 — In America, we have our steroid scandals, but Europe has trumped the U.S. in the competitive area of sports disgrace. Max Mosley, 68, President of the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) the governing body of motor sports in more than 50 countries with somewhere around 100 million total affiliated members has come under fire for the past few months. What’s heating up for Mr. Mosley are the video-taped scenes considered to be less than socially acceptable. Mr. Mosley, along with five young women, contracted young women, seemed to have burst through the boundaries of social acceptance. For some time now, with the help of a local madam, Mr. Mosley, in his hideaway apartment, has been entertaining multiple prostitutes at least two times a month, mainly engaging in S&M practices.

He spoke to them in German, bringing accusations of Nazism-related sexual overtones, though that has been denied. One girl has refused to testify, making his ouster or legal charges more difficult, but still a possibility.

A British newspaper, “The News of the World”, who originally broke the story, had offered one of these girls 25,000 British Pounds to sneak a video camera into the apartment and photograph Mosley doing his thing. Once that video became public, all hell broke lose for Mosley. His wife of 40 years and his two grown sons learned of his exploits from the media. Apparently Mosley’s exploits have been a way of life for his for more than 50 years.

What really turned this situation topsy-turvy wasn’t that Mosley was into S&M, it was how he did it. From what could be seen and heard from the secret video, Mosley was coming off like a Nazi soldier. There were spankings, leather, vulgar and obvious racial slurs, along with his adultery and S&M practices.

This is all happening around a man who is responsible for maintaining a standard of ethics and rules above all. This is the same man who only last year, fined the McLaren team a whopping $100 million for accepting Ferrari trade secrets. Some have speculated the secret sex video was a retatilation for that.

That couldn’t have made the powers at McLaren all too happy. In all fairness, Mosley did create, through his FIA, the Motor Sport Safety Development Fund with $60 million of that money. This new fund will provide education and funding to make all facets of automobiles safer around the world.

About two weeks ago, the FIA congress met, and gave Mosley a vote of confidence. That helped ward off the other facets of the FIA and the racing partnerships and sponsors. Most of the racing teams and their sponsors wanted Mosley to resign immediately. It was bad for business. In the forefront, the English, Germans and Jewish businessmen, who have deep financial interests in Formula 1, all called for his resignation. Mosley refused to back down despite the fact that he was caught on tape, having these sexual escapades with five hookers. As if that publicity wasn’t bad enough, the media had a field day reminding everyone that his father, Sir Oswald Mosley, was a well known fascist leader during World War II in England. It is certainly not a popular position to be in.

Max Mosley leads a worldwide racing enterprise and associations with millions of members. This man’s duty is to maintain consistent leadership, both ethically and financially. He’s to maintain a standard of performance, and thereby making sure that everyone else abides by those standards.

With all of this, Mosley wouldn’t back down. He opted for an offense instead. First, he took legal action against The News of the World for invasion of privacy, since the newspaper had contracted one of the girls to smuggle in a video camera. He went on, candidly, to explain his devotion to S&M, and that it shouldn’t be a hindrance to his duties as the FIA president. He said that pretending to be a German soldier was not the same thing as being a Nazi. And that using the word “schwarze” ( a slang German word used to identify black people) was a reference to the color of one of the girl’s hair, and not her ethnic background.

Mosley has been in the president’s office since he was elected in 1993, and his current term of office is coming to its end in 2009. Bernie Ecclestone, Formula 1’s boss, has apparently distanced himself from his former friend. This along with a lack of support from sponsors, team owners, manufacturers and drivers would make it nearly impossible for Mosley to win another term as head of the FIA. At this point it appears that Mosley has several more matters to clear up. His family, his friends and business associates would have to be in the front of the line. Currently, Mosley has been avoiding any participation in the Formula 1 world, which is his largest and most popular concern. In the past, Mosley has certainly been effective as the FIA’s number one, aggressively creating new rules and challenges for maintaining the elite world of Formula 1. He’s also been successful in promoting auto safety and addressing the needs of a changing oil dependant society. However, with all of that said, Mosley will probably serve out the remainder of his term as a lame duck.

The sponsors, many of them family-oriented companies, may not wait that long to vote with their pocketbooks. It is a volatile situation, one as compelling as a racetrack crash to watch, and just as potentially fateful.