The Federation Internationale d'Automobile (FIA) is the governing
and sanctioning body for the FIA World Driver's Championship, which
is run to a set of technical and procedural regulations and
specifications known as Formula One. The FIA's competition
committee, which consists of representatives of the motor sport
organizing bodies of the member countries (eg ACCUS represents the
US, the RAC represents the UK, the FFSA represents France), sets
the F1 regulations, interprets them, and judges any appeals or
disputes.
The Formula One Constructor's Association (FOCA) is an organisation
of the chassis builders (constructors) who design and build the
cars that race in the F1 Grands Prix. Since the rules these days
say that a constructor can supply cars to only one team,
constructor and team are more or less synonymous.
Originally, all the F1 Grands Prix were independent events,
independently financed and organized within their host countries.
The FIA merely set the technical regulations for F1, and designated
certain Grands Prix to be the qualifying rounds for the Driver's
and Constructor's Championships. Up until sometime in the 1970s,
there were other Grands Prix held besides those races included in
the FIA Championship. But the idea of non-Championship Grands Prix
died out as it became more and more expensive to hold F1 events.
As time went by, the Constructor's Association (FOCA) took on a
bigger and bigger role in the business side of Grand Prix racing.
They organized and coordinated the sponsorship of the events, sold
the television rights, and did the logistics and financing of
moving the Grand Prix `circus' from country to country.
Then, in the late 1970s, Jean-Marie Balestre was elected as head of
the Committee du Sport Internationale (CSI), the committee of the
FIA directly involved in supervising F1. He decided that the FIA
should take back more control over the sport. When he tried to
impose his will autocratically, Bernie Ecclestone and the other
constructors in FOCA resisted. There was a big power struggle
between FISA (Federacion Internationale du Sport Automotive,
Balestre's new name for the CSI) and FOCA in the early 1980s. Some
Grands Prix got cancelled or had their championship status stripped
as a result. In the end, FISA and the FIA won out over the FOCA,
mainly, because the teams were not unanimously behind the
FOCA (not all constructors were FOCA members), and because the
sponsors, race organizers, and others involved in Grand Prix racing
prevailed on both sides to settle things amicably. But for a while,
the FOCA was talking about forming a new F1 championship series
comprising the races that it organized, while the FIA of course was
threatening to refuse sanctioning for those races. There almost
were two `World Championship' series. Later on, Bernie Ecclestone
was appointed marketing director for the FIA, but he still retains
his presidency of FOCA. So Bernie is still in charge of the
organizational and financial side of Grand Prix racing, but now
officially as part of the FIA instead of in an independent
organisation.
The agreement between FISA and FOCA over control of F1 is called
the Concorde Agreement. Among other things, it says that except in
the case of emergencies, changes to technical regulations must be
announced two years in advance of the date of adoption, unless all
constructors agree unanimously to adopt the regulations earlier.
This came up in 1994 because Max Mosley wanted to introduce several
major technical changes in the wake of a series of fatal and
near-fatal accidents in F1. He made these changes without the
unanimous agreement called for by the Concorde Agreement, by
claiming that this was an emergency situation.
The FIA president, is responsible for setting rules
and policy for F1, but he's limited by the Concorde Agreement in
how quickly and how far he can push things his way. Since Bernie
Ecclestone still controls the purse strings for Grand Prix racing,
he still carries a lot of clout. As for `can somebody take it
away',the FIA president is elected by the representatives from the
member countries and when his term is up he could be voted out.
