Flavio Briatore could find his position as chairman and owner of Queens Park Rangers is in jeopardy after the Football League revealed it has requested details of the FIA's findings on the 'Crashgate' scandal.
Formula One's ruling body today banned Renault's disgraced former team principal from having any involvement in the sport as punishment for his role in ordering Nelson Piquet Jr to crash during last year's Singapore Grand Prix. The FIA also gave Renault a two-year suspended ban from the sport.
With the Football League requiring every club owner to qualify as a "fit and proper person", its chairman Lord Mawhinney, has written to the FIA to "request further details of its decision" on 'Crashgate'. Releasing the news in a statement, it added that “thereafter, the League will consider its position on the matter".
Briatore could also find that the Football League invokes a rule that makes anyone who is banned by another sporting governing body liable to be disqualified from owning a football club. Today's ruling could also affect Bernie Ecclestone's continued involvement with the Coca-Cola Championship club, which he took over with Briatore two years ago.
RELATED LINKS
Renault given two-year suspended ban
Piquet makes scathing attack on Briatore
MULTIMEDIA
COMMENT: Renault get away scot-free
Read the FIA's judgment in full
Some QPR fans have already passed judgment on Briatore and called for the resignation of the flamboyant millionaire, who took over the club at a cost of £25 million. A spokesman for Independent Rs, the supporters’ group, said: “This piece of unsporting behaviour has put QPR in the headlines again for the wrong reasons. There has been talk that the Mittal family would be interested in taking on Flavio Briatore's stake and we now believe it is the right time for him to move on.”
The Football League brought in a fit and proper persons test in 2004 as part of a general attempt to clean up the game and to ensure that people convicted of a serious offence could not become directors of clubs.
The LSA is a supporters group
Comment