Mosley refuses to give up fight to keep job in wake of sex scandal

Max Mosley has vowed to fight to remain in his post as president of motorsport's ruling body FIA until 2009 when his current four-year term ends, saying revelations about his private life are no reason to resign.

Mosley has been under immense pressure to quit since a News of the World report last month claimed he paid five prostitutes 2,500 pounds (4,948 dollars) in cash to engage in sex acts that involved Nazi role-playing. ( dpa )

A British court has since refused to grant an injunction preventing the tabloid newspaper from showing a video clip of the alleged incident on its website.

FIA has already announced that it will convene a hearing of its Extraordinary General Assembly in Paris on June 3 to address the issue but Mosley said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that he will look to stay in his job.

The 68-year-old says he will also seek damages from the News of the World over the story.

"It's outrageous, because the whole thing was predicated around the idea that this was some sort of Nazi orgy. And the Nazi aspect of that is absolutely untrue," he told the Telegraph.

"In fact, it was a deliberate, cold-blooded, calculated lie, to which there's no basis at all, and witness the fact that when they print the story, they have nothing to back it up."

The world's largest auto club, the American Automobile Association (AAA), and auto clubs from other nations such as Germany and the Netherlands have called for Mosley to quit the post he has held since 1993 in the interests of the sport.

Carmakers including BMW, Mercedes, Honda and Toyota have also sharply criticized Mosley whose invitation to the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix earlier this month was also withdrawn by Bahrain crown prince Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa.

But Mosley says he intends to give his account of the story to the general assembly rather than resigning.

"These matters are intensely private and obviously I would prefer not to have to speak about them in public but I feel I have been left with no choice because of the enormous publicity which has been generated," he said.

The Briton added that he felt what he did in his private life should have no bearing on his position as head of motorsport's ruling body.

"The problem with sex is that it goes all the way from missionary position with the lights out for the process of procreation, all the way through to the most weird and way out things that go way beyond anything I'd do, and I think that most adults would say that whatever in that spectrum somebody does, provided it doesn't hurt anybody, provided it's consensual, provided it's among adults, and provided it's in private, it concerns nobody but the people doing it. So I don't see it as a moral issue," he said.

Mosley said he still had the support of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and that the Nazi role-playing claims came about because he is the son of British Union of Fascists founder Sir Oswald Mosley.

"I think what happens is they [the News of the World] think 'what can we get at him, ah yes, we can say he's this Nazi. Is there any basis for Nazism? Not really, but we can kind of invent something and then focus on the family name.' The whole thing was quite deliberate from that point of view because it adds to the story."

Mosley's future now rests with the 222 voting members of the FIA, who will decide his fate in June.

"If they wish me to continue, I will continue, if they don't, I'll stop," he said.

"But I will also say to them that it was always my intention, because it is, that I was never going to go beyond 2009."