There were also concerns in Jordan, where Mosley is this weekend in attendance at the country's inaugural appearance on the World Rally Championship calendar. Citroën boss Olivier Quesnel admitted to
The Independent that he was anxious about the possibility of bumping into motorsport's top man.
“We understand that it is his private life,” Quesnel acknowledged, “but the problem is that everybody knows what is in his private life.”
Indeed, it has been another uncomfortable weekend for Mosley, who was embarrassingly uninvited to Israel [see separate story –
click here] after it emerged sports minister Galeb Majadle had been unaware of the lurid allegations when he had met with the president in Jordan. The retraction of the offer casts further doubt on Mosley's ability to effectively rule the sport, despite his insistence that he intends to remain in his role until the expiry of his current tenure in October, 2009.
“Once the scandal was brought to the minister's attention, he has requested to withdraw immediately any official invitation to Mosley until the matter is reviewed more thoroughly once back in Israel,” an Israeli government statement read.
The
FIA subsequently issued a statement underlining that ‘his invitation was not intended to be personal to Mosley himself, but rather to the representative of the FIA as a global organisation'.
Meanwhile, Mosley has spoken out to assert that he is not avoiding
F1 races, despite having been requested not to travel to Bahrain by the Gulf state's royal family and choosing to stay away from Spain in order – it has been suggested – to avoid any potential embarrassment to King Juan Carlos
“I never had any intentions of going to Barcelona, because I had nothing to do there,” he is quoted as having stressed by the
BBC, omitting any reference to the launch of the
EveryRace initiative.
