The “unfair treatment” which led FIA deputy president Reid to resign

Final week, former rally co-driver and FIA deputy president for sport Robert Reid publicly announced his resignation – in an election 12 months, the equal of rolling a grenade underneath the door.

Now he has taken to Substack to make clear his causes for quitting the put up. Within the printed assertion he thanked these inside motorsport and the FIA member golf equipment who had despatched him messages of assist – and as soon as once more emphasised what he sees as an absence of communication and transparency from above.

“It’s attention-grabbing, however not wholly shocking, that a lot of these messages of assist got here with the caveat of not being keen to say something publicly for worry of retaliation, which highlights a number of the points we face,” he wrote.

“I might by no means ask anybody to place themselves in what they really feel is an uncomfortable place, be it via a letter of assist or a social put up displaying clear endorsement, as I don’t really feel that it might be honest to take action. From different quarters the silence has been deafening.

“As I mentioned in my preliminary assertion, my choice to resign was not about personalities or politics. It was about rules. I took on this function with a transparent mandate: to assist lead a clear, accountable, and member-led federation.”

Reid’s departure was the newest indication of fault traces inside the FIA’s membership over its governance, a problem thrown into stark reduction by Motorsport UK chairman David Richards publishing an open letter last month.

Whereas FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s typically eccentric conduct, and seemingly random diktats concerning fringe points corresponding to driver jewelry and driver lexicon, have occupied centre stage by way of headlines, the disquiet runs deeper than that.

In the course of the run-up to the final election 4 years in the past, Ben Sulayem assured putative supporters that he could be a hands-off president who would delegate operational issues to an expert govt staff. In David Richards’ first salvo final month, he defined that this was why the UK’s nationwide membership supported Ben Sulayem over the British candidate, Graham Stoker.

However Ben Sulayem’s critics say the route of journey has really been in direction of a focus of energy into the president’s arms and, with it, an absence of transparency surrounding decision-making. This culminated in a furore over an insistence that binding non-disclosure agreements be signed earlier than a gathering of the World Motor Sport Council on the finish of February.

Among the many most contentious points in play behind the scenes is the FIA’s choice to take the promotion of the World Rallycross Championship in-house. Ben Sulayem’s critics level out that that is, in impact, a breach of the separation between church and state, because it had been – the FIA shouldn’t be each the governing physique of a department of motorsport and be accountable for its business exploitation.

There may be authorized precedent for this. In 1999 the European Union’s competitors fee launched an antitrust investigation into the FIA and System One Administration, then presided over by Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone. The EU’s place was that the connection between these two people, and the our bodies they represented, was altogether too cosy.

Certainly, Ecclestone held a place because the FIA’s head of promotions.

The EU felt there was a transparent battle of curiosity between the FIA’s function as regulator of worldwide motor racing and its business pursuits. To keep away from protracted and costly authorized motion it was extremely prone to lose, the FIA capitulated: Ecclestone stepped down from his function and divested himself of economic pursuits in motorsports aside from F1, whereas Mosley controversially ‘leased’ the F1 business rights to FOM.

Ben Sulayem’s annexation of the World Rallycross business rights is for certain to open this challenge up once more.

Johan Kristoffersson, Volkswagen Polo

Picture by: Pink Bull Content material Pool

“One of many clearest and most troubling examples of this breakdown concerned the internalisation of the World Rallycross Championship,” wrote Reid. “I repeatedly raised considerations, each concerning the governance course of and potential authorized implications, and acquired no response, regardless of my elected obligations and fiduciary obligations.

“Ultimately, I had no alternative however to hunt exterior authorized recommendation and assist. Solely then did I obtain a response, however sadly it lacked the readability and rigour I had hoped for. I used to be instructed, in broad phrases, that the governance course of was sound and there was no authorized danger.

“However no proof or clarification was provided to assist these assurances. As somebody accountable to the membership and uncovered to private legal responsibility, that was merely not acceptable.”

Reid additionally clarified his stance on the opposite challenge raised by Richards, the enforced signing of NDAs forward of a WMSC assembly. It’s identified that the FIA management has been vexed by the amount of knowledge leaking into the general public area from non-public conferences.

“One journalist mentioned to me that maybe the FIA needs to be extra involved with why individuals are leaking than who is doing it and I believe that’s value reflecting on,” he wrote.

“I didn’t refuse to signal the NDA modification. I merely requested a brief extension with a purpose to search authorized recommendation on a fancy doc ruled by Swiss regulation, which was introduced with a comparatively quick deadline. That request was denied.

“Because of this, I used to be excluded from the World Motor Sport Council assembly, for my part, each unfairly and unlawfully. Ten days later, my FIA e-mail was disabled with out discover. A number of requests for help and clarification went unanswered till, following a authorized letter from my counsel, I used to be knowledgeable this had been a deliberate choice.

Alexander Wurz, Robert Reid, Deputy President for Sport of the FIA

Picture by: DPPI

“I spoke up once I felt elementary rules had been being eroded. I did so respectfully, constructively, and all the time with the purpose of safeguarding the integrity of our sport. However doing so got here at a value.

“It grew to become clear that elevating professional considerations was not all the time welcomed and I skilled firsthand how difficult the established order can result in exclusion relatively than dialogue. I don’t remorse talking up. However I do imagine I used to be handled unfairly for doing so.”