Time to support FIA and Jean Todt
Bangalore, 24 Oct 2012: The Concorde Agreement to rule the sporting conditions for the FIA, Formula One Teams and the commercial rights holder FOM will be delayed for another few weeks as no agreement is reached by the stakeholders in view of the FIA demanding full control of the sporting activities, a legitimate demand. A full text of the Press Release by FIA on the Concorde Agreement is given at the end of the article. Your website www.INDIAinF1.com strongly believes that the FIA, the sporting federation should be incharge of the sport and not the commercial rights holder or the ring master Bernie Ecclestone, who has the legal rights to control the TV rights.
Any international sporting federation is the sole body which controls and administers that particular sport. Perhaps the only exception is The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, popularly known as FIA. It is the governing body for world motor sport and the federation of the world’s leading motoring organisations.
However, the premier championship under its aegis, the Formula One World Championship, appears to be controlled by different companies of Formula One Group like Formula One Management, Formula One Administration et al under an agreement called Concorde Agreement. The commercial rights are controlled by these companies with Bernie Ecclestone ruling the roost. However, the present Concorde Agreement comes to an end this year and the president of FIA Jean Todt is trying his best for the Federation to regain control and to enhance revenues for better running of sport.
Founded in 1904, FIA has its headquarters in Paris. The FIA is a non-profit making association. It brings together 232 national motoring and sporting organisations from 134 countries on five continents. Jean Todt, a French automotive executive, is the current president of FIA and has completed three years today (23 Oct 2012). He took over the responsibility of FIA chief when the International body is going through a governing crisis after its long-term president Mas Mosley was forced not to contest after he made stern efforts to see that FIA gets more revenues at the end of the then Concorde Agreement in 2009. Mosley, proposed various measures to cut the costs of running the teams and the championship including budget cap for the teams where teams choosing to cut budgets would be given freedom to greater technical changes. However, Formula One Teams Association believed that allowing some teams to have more technical freedom would create two tiers. FOTA also threatened a break-away series with only Force India and Williams supporting the FIA chief. Finally, Max Mosley agreed not to contest again and the teams reached a Concorde Agreement in August for three years ending 2012 and Mosley also supported the candidature of Jean Todt as the new president.
The FMSCI, the Indian federation chief, Vicky Chandhok, was also tipped to the post of the FIA president but eventually Jean Todt defeated former WRC champ Ari Watanan by a huge margin and had made tremendous improvements to the World body in the last three years including greater importance to Road safety.
Jean Todt took advantage of FIA Foundation for the Automobile and Society which was existing within the FIA since 2001 and launched the “Decade of Action for Road Safety” in 2011 along with his partner, an actress who believes in the same road safety. He dwelled on issues such as safety, mobility, the environment and consumer law  and made sure that the FIA actively promotes the interests of motorists at the United Nations, within the European Union and through other international bodies.
He also wants the FIA to gain control and get better revenues and INDIAinF1 strongly believes that the International Federation should take full control of things and the sport, including Formula One should be under the control of the FIA and not by the commercial rights holders.
Recently, Jean Todt was quoted by the Financial Times defending certain rumours: “It makes me smile when I read that we are going to lose control . . . I will never allow things which are under our responsibility to be dealt with by anybody else.”
Todt also put forward the case for the FIA earning a large share of F1’s revenues. “If you sometimes read the figures, F1 is a $2bn [revenue] business or $1.5bn. The FIA is a non-profit organisation, but we need to run our organisation. We need to encourage the development of the sport, we need to encourage development of action for road safety.”
The meeting in Paris was supposed to be held on 23 October 2012 but it was held a day before and no agreement was reached.
It is believed that the Concorde Agreement will take several weeks to get everyone on the same thread.
Hope the ring master will let the ownership of the sport go to its natural owners, the FIA!
From FIA website:
2012 Concorde Agreement
During a constructive meeting, Jean Todt, the FIA President, in co-operation with Bernie Ecclestone, the Commercial Rights Holder, has presented to all F1 Team Principals the new structure of governance, including the new conditions of entry for the Concorde Agreement, starting in 2013.
All the participants in the meeting were encouraged to seek clarification which resulted in a fruitful and helpful debate on how the new structure would operate in 2013 and beyond.
A further important step has been achieved today to secure the future of the F1 World Championship which should lead to a final settlement to be reached between the FIA, the Commercial Rights Holder and the Teams in the coming weeks.
ends
