22 September,2009 07:24 AM IST | | AFP
Flavio Briatore, banned from Formula One on Monday over the "Crashgate" affair, now faces questions over his role as co-owner of England's Queens Park Rangers Football Club.
The Football League here said it has requested details of The International Automobile Federation (FIA), motorsport's governing body, decision to ban the former team boss of Renault over his part in conspiring to fix the result of last year's Singapore Grand Prix. The league requires every club owner to pass a "fit and proper person" test and one of its rules says nobody can own a football club if they are banned from a sport's governing body. "The Football League chairman, Lord Mawhinney, has today written to the FIA to request further details of its decision," a Football League spokesman said. "Thereafter, the League will consider its position on the matter."
Briatore is part-owner at Loftus Road with Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. The flamboyant Italian is also chairman of the holding company that owns the club which plays in the second-tier Championship - and a director on the board.
Briatore quit Renault last week ahead of Monday's FIA hearing into Renault's ordering of Nelson Piquet junior to crash in Singapore to orchestrate a win for his teammate Fernando Alonso.
The FIA also handed a ban suspended until the end of the 2011 season to Renault. Briatore has denied all the accusations against him over the affair, saying they were "outrageous lies".
