MOTOR SPORT:MAX MOSLEY, the FIA president, yesterday fired back a robust defence of his behaviour and claimed that his sexual preferences should be no reason to drive him from office. The 68-year-old head of world motor sport admitted to eccentricity in his personal life and to an interest in sado-masochistic sex, but he believes such matters should remain private. Mosley also intends stepping down next year even if a vote by a special general assembly goes his way.
"I think most adults would say that whatever in that spectrum somebody does, provided it doesn't hurt anybody, provided it's consensual, provided it's among adults, provided it's in private, it concerns nobody but the people doing it," he said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.
Mosley was responding three weeks after the News of the World published a series of allegations claiming he was a "secret sado-masochistic pervert" amid details of his involvement with prostitutes at a Chelsea flat in what the paper claimed was an orgy with Nazi connotations.
"It's outrageous, because the whole thing was predicated around the idea that this was some sort of Nazi orgy," he said. "And the Nazi aspect of that is absolutely untrue. So that was really annoying, because obviously the main subject was embarrassing to say the least, but to have the Nazi connotation placed on it when it was completely untrue was extremely annoying."
Mosley, the youngest son of the British fascist leader Oswald Mosley, is suing the Sunday newspaper for "unlimited damages" for the invasion of his privacy. But the furore has led to calls in motor racing for his resignation.
Mosley believes that he will gain the necessary vote of confidence at the FIA general assembly meeting on June 3rd to enable him to stay in the job.
"If they wish me to continue, I will continue; if they don't, I'll stop," Mosley said. "But I will also say to them that it was always my intention, because it is, that I was never going to go beyond 2009. The reason's very simple. If you stop in 2009, aged 69, you can maybe still do something else useful. Were I to stay on till I was 73, I'd be getting very marginal."
He justified his decision not to capitulate to calls for his resignation by referring to the support he has from clubs around the world.
Mosley confirmed the episode had embarrassed his wife, Jean, and their two sons. "She's not best pleased," he said. "(My sons have) been completely supportive. And a surprising number of people in and around motor sport that I consider to be close friends have been amazingly supportive. Bernie (Ecclestone, the Formula One commercial rights holder), certainly he's supportive."
