FIA presidential election gets messy

At the end of July, David Ward announced that he would stand for election to become FIA President.

The boss of the FIA Foundation road safety organisation announced from the start that standing for election was never his real intention, it wasn’t a position which he ideally seeked, but to have debate you have to have opposing candidates and that’s why he announced he would stand against current FIA President Jean Todt.

‘it is important to have a debate, you can only have a debate if there is a choice of candidates, and there is no debate if there is no choice.’ he told The Times newspaper at the time.

Jean Todt later announced that he would be standing for re-election and according to Ward has already used his position of prominence to influence the forthcoming election.

Ward has made a complaint to the Federation’s Ethics Committee about attempts to distort the FIA’s election process.

In a statement published on Sky Sports Ward said: ‘It appears that the FIA’s current Presidency has been using FIA resources to try to predetermine the election outcome even before the process had begun.

He continued: ‘The FIA arranges and pays for meetings around the world, including to discuss how regions will benefit from future FIA activities and resources. It emerges that, at these meetings, a number of clubs have been asked to sign formal written commitments to support Jean Todt’s re-election bid, in the form of ‘support agreements’.’

He concluded: ‘I believe that demanding signature of support agreements in these circumstances represents a serious violation of the FIA’s rules, regulations and ethical code.’

In August Ward resigned his post as Director General of the FIA Foundation, whilst the general assembly will meet on December 6th to vote for the presidency.