Motorsport UK and RAC move away from running candidate Graham Stoker, despite being British
Next December 17 is the presidential election of the International Automobile Federation, and at the moment the surprise has already jumped in the United Kingdom, where the federal entities will give their vote to the candidate Mohammed bin Sulayem instead of supporting the national option Graham Stoker, which is calculated with the support of Jean Todt.
Ben Sulayem was in his nomination the president of the Royal Spanish Automobile Federation, Valencia Manuel Aveno, who would be the vice-president in the event of a win-win option. Stocker is currently working for the FIA as Vice President of Sport and is therefore a continuity option.
Motorsport Club UK and Royal Automobile Club made it clear that the nationality of the candidate did not influence their decision – Bin Sulayem Emirati; Stoker, English – but they chose their task force proposals and the governance system they wanted to implement.
“It’s not a partisan decision, but we made it consciously for future proposals,” said David Richards, director of Motorsport UK. “Mohammed’s team doesn’t have all the answers, but they accept that change is needed. In these turbulent times and with what lies ahead, this is what we need. We can’t move forward with ‘Trust us, it will be like always and everything will be fine.’” That is not true today.”
To select their vote, Motorsport UK and RAC invited both candidates to London and gave them two hours to present their program and answer their questions. They requested permission to share a recording of their presentation with their members, in an exercise of transparency. Here there was the first defection.
“We felt it was a closed process, like a decision between friends. We don’t think sports directorates nowadays should decide that way. We want to be different and our members have a say and a voice. Unfortunately, Team Graham Stoker, did not want to share this video with our members. … That was a big surprise and it confused us, because we don’t feel good about not being able to share this information with people.”
Ben Kosons, president of the Royal Automobile Club, explained that he was surprised by the content of the Ben Sulayem team exhibition.
“The FIA has two ramifications: sport and mobility. In their presentation, they went into detail about mobility, and looked forward to see where the FIA could be in a few years and where it should be. Their manifesto is not revolutionary but rather an evolution. One who respects good governance. They tried so hard. They want to serve all the FIA members and not a few, and that’s why our vote for Mohammed bin Sulayem will be.”
“Everyone can see that the world is changing very quickly. This does not have to be a bad thing, because it contributes a lot to the economy of many countries. You have to stay with the positive. There are many opportunities out there, but we can make the most of them only if We had a proactive team. That’s what the FIA does in the field of mobility and in the field of sport.”
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