Legal action threat amid attack on Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s reign

Motorsport UK chairman Dave Richards has threatened F1’s governing body the FIA with legal action after raising concerns about its governance.

Richards, 72, was one of the FIA members who were banned from a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council last week after he refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

In a long letter to members of Motorsport UK, Richards has taken aim at FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and his controversial governance of the sport.

Richards supported Ben Sulayem’s candidacy as FIA president back in 2021 but now claims the situation has “progressively worsened” under the 63-year-old Emirati’s leadership.

“For some time now l've had concerns about the erosion of accountability and good governance within the FIA,” Richards wrote.

“As you may have seen in the press, an issue has recently emerged that has compelled me to take a stand and needs an explanation.

“First of all, let me turn the clock back to a little over three years ago when we, alongside the Royal Automobile Club, supported Mohammed Ben Sulayem in his bid to become the next President of the FIA.

“Many of you were possibly surprised that we didn't support the British candidate, Graham Stoker, but the Board met with both candidate teams and was convinced by the well thought out plans that Mohammed's campaign team presented, which very much aligned with our own views of the way the FIA should transform itself.

“The key messages in their presentation were: A hands-off President who would be non-executive and delegate the day-to-day running of the FlA to a professional executive team.

“The appointment of an empowered and capable CEO to run the FIA to professional standards.

“Full transparency of actions and the highest standards of sporting governance.”

FIA president accused of broken promises 

Richards has accused Ben Sulayem, who is expected to stand for re-election when his four-year term expires in December, of broken promises.

“I'm afraid that over the last three years there has been a distinct failure to meet these promises,” he added.

“In fact, the situation has progressively worsened with media reports confirming that numerous senior members of the FIA and volunteer officials have either been fired or have resigned under an opaque cloud.

“Furthermore, the scope of the Audit and Ethics Committees has been severely limited and now lacks autonomy from the authority of the President, while our UK representative, who challenged certain matters, was summarily removed along with the Chair of the Audit Committee."

Richards says he has been forced to speak out after being asked to sign what he considers to be a “gagging order”, something he describes as being the “final straw”.

“This has become increasingly worrying and the final straw for me, three weeks ago, was being asked to sign a new confidentiality agreement that I regarded as a gagging order,” he continued.

"The construction of this new confidentiality agreement does not comply with the statutes of the FIA and contradicts the promise of transparent governance we had voted for.

"Our Motorsport UK lawyers, along with our French legal counsel, have challenged the FIA on their actions by setting out a clear set of questions that the FIA leadership needs to answer.

“It is very disappointing to report that we have still not received an answer to these or the fundamental question I raised: where in the FIA statutes does it provide for an elected member to be barred from a meeting?"