Motor racing-Motorsport UK head concerned by FIA governance

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Motorsport UK head David Richards has expressed concern for the future of Formula One's governing body ahead of a vote that would limit the powers of its audit and ethics committees.

The FIA has proposed statute changes, to be voted on next Friday, that would give president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and the senate president, a close ally, oversight of any ethics complaints.

The BBC, which has seen the documents, reported the changes would also remove the audit committee's power to investigate financial issues independently.

"Hopefully, people will realise that this is not the right direction to take, and that we need to make sure that the FIA upholds the very best of sporting governance in the world," Motorsport UK chairman David Richards told .

"The audit committee, in my view, should be completely independent and be able to investigate any issue it wishes within the FIA.

"The statute change that's being proposed will stop that, and that's not good governance," added Richards, who sits on the FIA's World Motor Sport Council.

There was no comment from the FIA at Formula One's season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, although Ben Sulayem told Reuters in Qatar a week earlier that how the FIA was run was up to the members.

"We have transparency. We get everything by votes. And everything is democratic," he said.

Richards told the BBC he was concerned "major organisations around the world would refuse to work with the FIA if it did not reflect the highest standards of corporate governance, as befits our sport".

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)