Daily Mail
Bernie Ecclestone’s comments today in defence of Vladimir Putin and Nelson Piquet are just another in a long list of controversies to plague the 91-year-old billionaire’s career.
Here we list them below.
Hitler comments
He was previously forced to apologise when speaking in praise of Adolf Hitler, saying he was a man that could ‘get things done.’
At the same time, he accused Jews of failing to solve the banking crisis, even though ‘they have a lot of influence everywhere’.
A spokesman for Germany’s Central Council of Jews said: ‘No team should work with him any more – a boycott would be more than appropriate.’
Later, Ecclestone said he was ‘so sorry’ and called himself ‘an idiot’.
Bribery accusation
Ecclestone was accused of paying a £27million kickback to disgraced banker Gerhard Gribkowsky in 2005, to get him to sell his bank’s holdings in Formula One to a client of Ecclestone’s choosing.
The sport’s boss claimed the money was not in dispute but that he paid it because he was being ‘shaken down’ and wanted Gribkowsky to keep silent about his wealth to British tax authorities.
Ecclestone was cleared of bribery charges in August 2014 after he paid a German criminal court £60million.
The case caused anger in Germany where critics said Ecclestone had been ‘washed clean’ thanks to his ‘spectacular’ payment.
Campaigners said allowing the defendant to use his wealth to stop a criminal prosecution was ‘worrying’.
Racism remarks
When seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton launched a commission to tackle racism and diversity in F1 following the murder of George Floyd, Ecclestone initially praised the idea.
However he then asked whether it would ‘do anything bad or good for Formula One’, before adding: ‘In a lot of cases, black people are more racist than white people are…
