UpdateF1 >> Formula 1 News > Mosley was warned of plot

Ecclestone confided in friend

Jun.27 (GMM) Before attending the notorious military-themed orgy with five prostitutes, FIA president Max Mosley was reportedly warned at least three times that his enemies were out to destroy him.

Dean Attew, a London based business intelligence consultant who was also friends and a former colleague of F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, told The Times newspaper that he personally warned Mosley.

Attew said he was contacted in late January - two months before the News of the World expose - by someone who was hatching a plot to discredit the FIA chief.

"We had a meeting and I was approached and told there was an open budget to effectively go out and source material that would bring Max to his knees and, more importantly, remove him from office and discredit him publicly," said Attew, co-founder of the corporate intelligence company Titon International.

He added: "They then went back and they came back a little while later and said, 'We are not going to pursue it for the time being'."

Attew, who told Ecclestone of the meeting, said the unnamed discreditors contacted him to test his loyalty to Mosley.

"Bernie then told Max -- I know this because Max later confirmed this to me.

"Because of the relationship I have with both of them, and Max knowing who I was, I assumed that the warning would be taken seriously," he said, adding that Mosley was also warned "by someone else" as well.

Despite Ecclestone's warning to Mosley, Attew said Bernie doubted the FIA president would be discredited in this way because "he's Mr Boring".

Attew worked for Ecclestone's Formula One Group for four years until 2004.

Written: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:39:33