Shake-up adds vigor to Arab Motorcycle Federation

Tony Lewis

DUBAI — Mohammed Ben Sulayem said Wednesday that the restructuring of the Arab Motorcycle Federation (AMF), a process driven by the Union of Arab National Olympic Committees (UANOC), can take competitive bike racing in the region to a new level.

Sulayem, President of the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE, believes regional moto racing can look forward to a bright new future with a calendar of events run to the international standards laid down by the FIM, the sport’s world governing body.

That will be one of the goals of a new-look AMF following the dismissal of its executive committee by Prince Nawaf Bin Faisal, President of UANOC.

Qatar’s Nasser Khalifa Al-Attiyah, Vice President of the FIM, and Mahir Badri, CEO of the ATCUAE, are among the members of a newly-appointed 10-man provisional committee which met for the first time in Riyadh Sunday to plan the way forward.

Among its initial recommendations was that membership of the AMF, which is to be funded by UANOC and headquartered in Riyadh, will in the future be restricted to motor cycle bodies officially recognized by the FIM.

This will be high on the agenda for the next meeting, to be scheduled in due course, when a new AMF statute will be rubber stamped and the new executive committee formally elected.

“This is a very important step for motor cycle racing in the Arab world, and we are all indebted to Prince Nawaf for his action to eliminate the problems that the sport had been experiencing,” said Sulayem. “The sport can only move forward if events are run in compliance with FIM regulations which guarantee the highest standard of competitive racing and ensure the safety of competitors, spectators, and all others involved.”

Chairing Sunday’s meeting in Riyadh, Engineer Mishaal Bin Fahd Al-Sudairi, Vice President of the Asian Motorcycle Union, said the reforms instigated by Prince Nawaf were in response to “many irregularities and abuses” by the former executive committee.

Sulayem said: “We are now making a clean break with the past and have a new platform to build on to ensure motor cycling in the region goes from strength to strength.”

The new committee includes Omar Zaarour, Executive Director of the Royal Motorcycle Club of Jordan; Reda Boukhari, President of the Moroccan Motorcycling Federation; and Shehab Baloul, President of the Algerian Motorcycling Federation.

The other members are Othman Mohammed Al-Saad, UANOC’s General Secretary; Saad Bin Saleh Al-Sufiani, UANOC’s General Secretary of Technical Affairs; and Sultan Al-Mokheiri, member of Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation.