MAY 24, 2008

Meanwhile in Japan

As the FIA heads towards the General Assembly on June 3, the activity is ramping up in club circles as they try to decide whether to allow Max Mosley to stay on in his current role. The latest development, leaked in the press, is a letter from Setsuo Tanaka, the president of the Japanese Automobile Federation (JAF) which reveals that the meeting of the FIA World Council for Automobile Mobility and Tourism in Antwerp agreed unanimously to ask two of its members to try to persuade Mosley to step down before there is a vote.

Tanaka argued in his letter that any vote will have negative consequences for the federation.

"We should avoid a vote of confidence because if President Mosley would get no confidence it would mean disaster for him and if President Mosley would get confidence, it would mean disaster for the FIA."

The World Council for the Automobile Mobility and Tourism thus asked FIA Deputy President Franco Lucchesi and the President of the FIA Region I (basically Europe) Werner Kraus of Austria to try to persuade Mosley to stand down. Tanaka also said that he wrote a personal letter to Mosley asking him to step down.