Formula 1 appears to be heading headlong into an all-out war between disgraced FIA President
Max Mosley and commercial rights-holder
Bernie Ecclestone – a showdown that is threatening to tear the sport apart.
The latest matter of contention – due to be debated during a meeting of the
FIA's World Motor Sport Council in Paris tomorrow (Wednesday) – is the continuing failure to agree terms over a new Concorde Agreement, the document that has governed the sport since the much-publicised FISA-FOCA war of 1981.
In case a compromise cannot be reached, Ecclestone is allegedly colluding with teams to discuss the possibility of launching a breakaway grand prix series away from
F1. This suggestion has been mooted in the wake of the damage done to the sport following the lurid revelations about Mosley's private life published in the
News of the World just under three months ago, over which the embattled 68-year-old has repeatedly refused to step down.
In an attempt to bring the team bosses around and re-affirm his authority, however, Mosley is now refusing to put his signature to a new Concorde Agreement unless the teams are given an increased share of the sport's commercial revenue by Ecclestone's company
Formula One Management and his commercial rights-holding partner, CVC Capital Partners – something the 77-year-old billionaire is unwilling to concede to.
According to
The Independent, that money will come in the form of the majority of the race fees and two-thirds of the TV revenues, compared to the 50 per cent of all revenues generated by the Formula One Group that the teams currently receive. Mosley wants this figure to be closer to 75 per cent.
