https://www.planetf1.com/news/report-mohammed-ben-sulayem-replaced-david-richards/ If true I support it.
Genuine question: Does liberty have any ability to make the FIA change things? The FIA has already come out to say the sexist statements don't reflect his views... I think the guy is a clown, but is there any legitimate risk to his position?
This seems to have been brewing for a while. The good thing is that David Richards seems to be the prime candidate for the seat. I agree, I don't like F1 dictating stuff here. Yes, seems he was quite drunk and embarrassing in general...
I would say it's highly unlikely that an Emirati in position of power would be seen drinking alcohol. That's a definite no-no in the Middle-East culture.
That depends William. Certain sections of the city of whatever Middle-East countries have been "westernized" meaning alcohol is allowed.
Yes, I know, but it's mostly done for outsiders, westerners and tourists. But it's still very much frowned upon for an Emirati, or any Muslim to be seen consuming alcohol. For someone like MBS being drunk would mean instant disgrace and worse ...
I neither like or dislike Sulayem (yet), but he has my sympathy in this. **** Liberty. Although it´s true that he probably shouldn´t have said anything about Liberty´s businesses. That boat sailed long ago, when Mosley gave almost for free the rights to his pal Bernie. From then on, F1 is in the market and there´s not much FIA can do about it.
I'm not a fan so far of Sulayem, as Think he was elected chiefly by Saudi business interests vs. any real focus on the sport.
It's not only F1, over the years the rights of most world championships have been sold: WEC, WRC, etc ... In fact, David Richards, the Prodrive boss whose name has been mentioned as a replacement for MBS, at one time headed the group that bought the commercial rights of the World Rally Championship.
The FIA president is elected by representative of all the national organisations worldwide affilialted to the world body. It's quite possible that the Middle East lobby bought votes from some countries to have MBS elected. That reflects the increasing influence of Gulf countries in sports in general (World Cup, Dakar, etc ...). Just like the USA, the affluent Middle East now holds 3 GPs, and puts lots of money in F1, like they do in rallying. In the end, they want more control over their investment. It looks to me that there is some sort of a tug of war between US interests (Liberty), and Middle East interests (FIA through MBS).
The problem is that Bernie owned the rights for... 100 years!!!! What kind of corrupt idiot would give away the rights virtually forever? Oh, Max Mosley. That leaves little room for the FIA to have a say about the F1 business in the future.
Yes. Unfortunately for F1 and Bernie the CVC arrangement was a stretch too far and the elastic snapped. One of the CVC chaps was a neighbour who we'd occassionally see in the elevator. Never mentioned F1 though
I don't need to visit these places to know what's going on. But it's still very damaging for a prominent individual from the Middle East to be caught drinking or even worse drunk.
It seems like it would be very difficult to remove him before his 4 years is up. I wonder if the most likely outcome is that Liberty Media is making sure he simply doesn't have the support to get reelected and they're floating their preferred candidate's name now. All the best, Andrew.
I've seen rumors of the Middle East wanting to buy F1. Maybe there's a correlation between MBS and the Middle East regarding said rumor. Again, I'm just speculating.
The 100 years term seems excessive, but is in fact quite current for that sort of concession. For example, in UK many people buy houses built on plots of land covered by a 100 years lease. The lease owner recovers the right to the land at the expiry, with everything on it !
Clearly you do need to visit and witness the actuality if you don't wish to rely on your own assumptions. It's happening. Yes it's hypocritical of them.
