BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — A defiant Max Mosley has vowed to fight to hold on to the Presidency of the FIA until 2010 despite calls for him to resign following the revelation that he took part in a five-hour S&M sex orgy in a London apartment.
“The fundamental reason [I have not resigned] is that the people who elected me, the presidents of all these clubs worldwide, a number of them have written, and for every letter I’ve had from a club president saying ‘I think you should step down’ or ‘I think you should consider your position,’ I’ve had…more than seven who said ‘you’ve absolutely got to stay, don’t give an inch,’ and ‘this is the most outrageous invasion,’ and suggesting that there’s more to this than meets the eye, which of course there may be.
“It would then be impossible to turn around to all these people, the great majority, and say, ‘no I’m going to walk away,’ even if I’m inclined to. But my inclination is to stay and fight.”
Mosley reiterated his earlier claims that, while intensely embarrassing now that they have been revealed, his sexual activities were legal, private matters between consenting adults. And he again denied that there were any Nazi overtones.
“The Nazi aspect of that is absolutely untrue,” he said. “In fact, it was a deliberate, cold-blooded, calculated lie, to which there’s no basis at all, and witness the fact that when they [The News of the World] print the story, they have nothing to back it up.”
While Mosley says he is getting support from the various automobile and sporting clubs under the FIA umbrella, they are not going public with their views as they prefer to wait until Mosley faces an official but secret vote on his future June 3.
Even if they do vote for him to stay on, Mosley, 68, revealed that he will not seek reelection in 2010.
The South African motorsports association is the latest club to ask him to resign.
“I haven’t seen the video, but people’s private lives don’t concern us,” managing director Beaulah Schoeman told the Associated Press. “It brings not only the FIA, but motorsport, into disrepute.”
Mosley will make his first appearance in his official capacity since the scandal broke when he attends the World Rally Championship round in Jordan this weekend. The country invited him to be the guest of honor as it hosts the first ever WRC event in an Arab country.