FIA Removes Ben Sulayem Term Limit: With Thunderous Applause

The FIA held its Extraordinary General Assembly in Macau on Thursday and passed the proposal Coffee Corner Motorsport reported on in May: presidential term limits removed, candidacy rules tightened, and the ceiling on Ben Sulayem’s tenure gone entirely. In plain terms, the FIA removes Ben Sulayem term limit and gives its president a route to stand beyond the old three-term ceiling. The membership voted for it by a supermajority. The FIA confirmed the result without providing the specific numbers. Two of F1’s biggest teams are currently at the FIA’s own International Court of Appeal over Monaco. The financial turnaround under Ben Sulayem is real. The governance direction now looks unmistakable.

Key Points – FIA removes Ben Sulayem term limit

• FIA Extraordinary General Assembly in Macau approved removal of presidential term limits by a supermajority on Thursday 26 June, as CCM reported was expected in May
• Ben Sulayem can now stand indefinitely beyond the previous three-term, 12-year ceiling introduced by Jean Todt after the Mosley era
• Candidacy rules tightened at the same vote: VP submission deadline more than doubled from 49 to 100 days, vague experience requirement added. Three candidates failed to reach the ballot under existing rules last year
• FIA operating profit of €6.7m in 2025, up 43% year on year, reversing a €-24m loss in 2021. The financial case for the presidency is the strongest argument on the table
• McLaren and Red Bull are currently at the FIA’s own International Court of Appeal over Monaco. The timing of Thursday’s vote sits uncomfortably against that backdrop
• Laura Villars’ legal challenge to the FIA election process in the French courts remains live. Robert Reid, who resigned as FIA VP for sport last year, said term limits remind an institution that office is temporary and no individual should become structurally indispensable

It Passed. As Expected.

CCM covered this in May when the proposal was announced. The direction was clear then. The FIA’s justification was consistency: the World Councils and the Senate carry no term limits, so the presidency should match them. The obvious counter-question, why not add limits to the bodies that lack them rather than remove the one that exists, went unanswered then and went unanswered again in Macau. The FIA confirmed a supermajority approved the changes. It did not confirm the specific vote count.

The three-term, 12-year ceiling was introduced by Jean Todt after the Mosley era. It was a governance guardrail put in after a long period of concentrated presidential power. Ben Sulayem, who has been president since December 2021 and was re-elected unopposed in December 2025, has now used the membership to remove it. The FIA framed Thursday’s outcome as part of a broader modernisation of how the organisation governs itself.

The Financial Case

The FIA reported an operating profit of €6.7m in 2025, up 43% on the prior year. In 2021, the year Ben Sulayem took over, the federation recorded a €-24m operating loss. That turnaround is real. The financial discipline has been real. These are not numbers that can be dismissed, and Ben Sulayem’s statement from Macau leaned into them directly.

The financial case answers a different question than the governance one. An institution can be financially healthy and structurally compromised at the same time. The profit figures justify the economic management. They do not address what happens when the person responsible for that management removes the mechanism that would require them to eventually hand it over.

The Candidacy Rules

As CCM reported in May, the term limit proposal did not arrive alone. The VP submission deadline has been extended from 49 to 100 days before the election. A requirement for candidates to demonstrate sufficient experience within an FIA member or body has been added. Both were passed at the same assembly.

The VP deadline is the one with direct history behind it. Last year’s election ended before it began because only one eligible South American candidate existed, Fabiana Ecclestone, and she had already committed to Ben Sulayem’s slate. Tim Mayer and Laura Villars both failed to complete their tickets as a result. Villars is still in the French courts challenging the process. Extending the submission window to 100 days means future challengers must assemble a full global slate even earlier against an incumbent who holds the existing network across all six regions.

Robert Reid, who resigned as FIA vice-president for sport last year citing a standards breakdown, wrote on LinkedIn this week that term limits remind an institution that office is temporary, that legitimacy must be refreshed, and that no individual should become structurally indispensable. His concern with the experience requirement was specific: the definition of sufficient is not set out, which means the judgement of what qualifies remains with FIA structures. In an organisation where the last election was challenged before it reached the ballot, that is not a drafting detail. It is where process and power meet.

The Timing

McLaren and Red Bull are currently at the FIA’s own International Court of Appeal over Monaco. The case centres on whether the stewards’ decision to reinstate Gasly’s podium after correcting a timing measurement error was fair to teams that served their penalties on track during the race. The ICA is the FIA’s own highest independent appeal body. Two of F1’s biggest teams are using it against a call made under the FIA’s own judicial process.

Thursday in Macau saw FIA members vote through the removal of the president’s own tenure limit, an extension of the rules that kept challengers off last year’s ballot, and a new qualification barrier with no clear definition. The FIA’s statement described the outcomes as reflecting stronger governance and a clear long-term vision. The member clubs voted for it by a supermajority. The teams at the ICA were not part of that vote.

The IOC Comparison

In 2024, IOC president Thomas Bach faced the same question and turned it down. He declined to extend beyond 12 years and said the organisation was best served by a change in leadership, that new times call for new leaders. Bach chose not to change the rules. Ben Sulayem changed them. The FIA and IOC are different organisations. The contrast in how both handled the same question in the space of 18 months is not a small one.

Coffee Corner Take

I called this in May. The proposal was going to pass and it did. The membership has shown no appetite to fight it and the structure that reaches a General Assembly rewards continuity over disruption. That does not make the outcome easier to defend from the outside.

The financial numbers are genuine and deserve to be said plainly before anything else. €6.7m profit, 43% increase, turnaround from a €-24m loss. Ben Sulayem inherited a federation in poor financial shape and improved it. That is real credit and it is his.

But the governance picture is something else entirely. A president who ran unopposed after the rules made completion of a rival candidacy almost structurally impossible has used the same membership to remove the one ceiling that guaranteed eventual renewal, extended the deadline that closed the last election before it opened, and added a vague qualification barrier FIA structures will interpret. All of it framed as harmonisation and modernisation. All of it passed by a supermajority and none of it with clear reasons why.

FIFA introduced a 12-year term limit in 2016 specifically because of what happens when a president runs unchecked for 17 years. The reform committee said explicitly that limits were needed to cut the political dependencies that come with people staying too long. The FIA wrote the same principle into its own statutes after the Mosley era. It has now voted to remove it while FIFA, for all its own governance criticisms, still formally holds the line it drew in Zurich.

The timing as well could not be worse. McLaren and Red Bull are at the FIA’s own court now over Monaco. The week that formal legal process begins against a FIA decision is the week the president of that federation removes the limits on his own tenure. That sequence is not comfortable reading for anyone who wants to believe the sport is governed transparently and in its own best interests.

There is a scene in Star Wars where Senator Padme watches Palpatine address the Galactic Senate. He speaks of security. Stability. A clear long-term vision for the good of the Republic. The senate erupts in applause. Palpatine gets everything he wants. Padme turns to Bail Organa and says: “So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”

The FIA is not the Galactic Empire. Ben Sulayem is not Palpatine. But when a governing body removes presidential term limits, tightens candidacy rules, declines to explain itself clearly, and frames the whole thing as stronger governance and a clear long-term vision, the Padme line is not an unfair thing to have in your head nor will it stop talk of a dictatorship rather than a democracy to those outside the FIA .

Robert Reid said term limits remind an institution that office is temporary. The FIA has decided it prefers not to be reminded. The members voted for it. With thunderous applause and we all know how that saga ended.