The FIA responds to Jean Todt’s allegations about the financial situation left to Ben Sulayem in 2021
The FIA has revealed the extent of the unsustainable financial hole « » it is trying to plug, downplaying former president Jean Todt's claims that its situation was exaggerated.
Jean Todt criticized the comments made by the current president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who claimed several times to have inherited a delicate financial deficit when he came into power in 2021.
But the FIA insists that things were not exaggerated, as it has now revealed that the state of finances at the time of Ben Sulayem’s administration was unsatisfactory and unsustainable. According to the audited accounts of the FIA, the operating loss of the governing body amounted to 12.8 million euros in 2019, 22.1 million euros in 2020, and 24 million euros in 2021.
After Ben Sulayem took office, the FIA had reduced its operating loss to 7.7 million euros in 2022, with a projected loss of 3 million euros this year. Hoping that the deficit can be further reduced in 2024, before aiming for a balanced operating result in 2025.
A spokesperson for the FIA explained how serious the situation was when the new administration took over. « As the President of the FIA emphasized during the Annual General Assemblies in Baku, the FIA was transparent in revealing that shortly after the new presidential team took office, the discovered financial situation was unsatisfactory and unsustainable. […] The federation was experiencing significant losses ».
The mission of the senior management is to support the FIA, and although we are non-profit, we must at least have balanced accounts and ideally create a surplus to strengthen equity in case of unforeseen events and invest in research and development in the fields of FIA safety, technology, and regulations in sports and mobility, in order to fulfill our main objective of supporting our member clubs.
« We will release the figures for 2021-22 in the coming weeks and the figures for 2023 in mid-June 2024 for the extraordinary general assembly ».
Ben Sulayem was not afraid to declare that the state of the FIA’s finances was unexpected upon his arrival in December 2021. « There was a financial problem of which we were unaware », he declared a few months after taking office. « […] We had a deficit, even before the pandemic, but I am happy to have filled it ».
