by Terry Lovell
The task of Lady Ward, whose clients include Lord Lloyd-Webber, Paloma Picasso, Ian McEwan, Countess Spencer and David Seaman, the former England and Arsenal goalkeeper, was to claw back as much as possible of the £1.9 billion that, for tax reasons, Ecclestone had put in an overseas account in Slavica’s name in 1999. If a private agreement were not reached, a separate hearing would be necessary to determine just how much of his fortune Ecclestone will be forced to concede. But it is unlikely that it will get that messy. It is not his style.
For the sake of his daughters, he will want to draw a line under the break-up of his marriage as soon as possible, to avoid a potentially embarrassing mediafest – while he continues unceasingly to be driven by the business that brought it all to ruin.
Much of Ecclestone’s serious wealth, through his television interests and Formula One-related companies, of which he was sole director, began in the late eighties. Between 1989 and 1997 he earned at least £190 million in salaries. That, of course, was from known emoluments. In 1996 he became the highest-paid businessman in Britain, with a salary of £54.9 million. The extent of his wealth was publicly acknowledged for the first time in 1995, when he featured in the Sunday Times Rich List with a personal wealth rating of £30 million. By 1997 that figure had increased to £275 million, making him the 58th richest man in the country. Within three years, through the Eurobond sale and 50 per cent sale of SLEC Holdings, it had increased to £2.7 billion. It elevated him and Slavica, in whose name the family trust which owned SLEC Holdings was held and who was now the richest woman in Britain, to equal sixth position. By 2001 they occupied third position in the Rich List with a joint fortune of £3 billion; a year later they had dropped to fifth position but with an estimated pile of £4 billion. How much they are really worth would probably take a team of investigators and forensic accountants with access to the world’s offshore banks a year or two to accurately evaluate.
As news of Ecclestone’s wealth was published in newspapers in various parts of the world, it brought with it the inevitable risk of attracting unwanted attention. It prompted a 48-year-old Croatian, Momir Blagojevic, to attempt, rather recklessly, to relieve him of £1 million in a crude blackmail plot. Its genesis began in 1997 – the year, ironically, when Ecclestone’s donation of a similar sum to the Labour Party was very much in the news – following the publication in a Croatian tabloid, Imperijal, of a series of sensational allegations involving his wife. Across a four-page spread, illustrated by nude photographs taken during Slavica’s late teens, Blagojevic, who claimed to have known her more than 20 years earlier as his confidante and lover, alleged that she had worked as a honey-trap spy to procure information from the rich and the powerful for communist Yugoslavia’s secret police, the UDBA. Blagojevic stated in the article that he intended to reveal even more details of her past in a book.
The piece was published shortly before Slavica arrived in Croatia on a family visit. She phoned her husband to tell him herself about it, admitting that she had once known Blagojevic, who had befriended her in Rijeka. But the allegations, she insisted, were completely untrue, a reassurance Ecclestone accepted without question. Within a week a criminal libel suit was filed on Slavica’s behalf against Blagojevic and the 21-year-old reporter Roko Vuletic, who wrote the article. At the same time, a civil libel suit was issued against the newspaper for damages of £30,000.
Soon after the trial had begun, Blagojevic made his second mistake: he contacted Ecclestone’s lawyer in Zagreb to put a proposal to him – he would withdraw all the allegations in return for $1 million. The lawyer reported Blagojevic’s blackmail attempt to Ecclestone. Clearly, Blagojevic had no understanding of whom he was dealing with. To demand money from Ecclestone would be a foolhardy exercise. To do it through blackmail bordered on the insane. Ecclestone, playing for time, agreed to a meeting. He wanted to do nothing to discourage Blagojevic in the optimistic belief that he would soon be a millionaire. Instead, the meeting Ecclestone was busy planning was intended to incriminate Blagojevic, and, in so doing, clear his wife’s name as well as provide evidence in support of the legal action against the Croatian.
He rang a British Sunday tabloid, the Sunday Mirror, to speak to a features writer who had written an article about his wife, ostensibly to express a mild complaint. His real purpose, though, was to suggest that there was a much better story to be had. A reporter and a photographer, posing as his negotiators, should attend a meeting with Blagojevic, who could be expected to repeat his blackmail threat for the benefit of a hidden tape recorder. The paper’s editor, sensing a sensational front-page splash, happily agreed. The meeting took place at a pizzeria in Slavica’s home town of Rijeka on 26 March 1998.
True to script, Blagojevic reassured the journalists that, in return for $1 million, he would retract his allegations, claiming they had been fabricated out of a desire for revenge because Slavica had turned her back on their former friendship and had refused to help him financially. He obligingly made all the right threats – his book was ‘an exploding bomb’ … ‘it would break her’ … ‘it’s very dangerous for Formula One’ … ‘if I make a deal we are on the same side’ – and the Sunday Mirror had its front-page story, plus, as part of the deal, an interview with Slavica, who told of the deep distress the lies had caused her family. In the circumstances, the evidence of the tape proved unnecessary. Blagojevic and Vuletic made a public apology, followed by the newspaper, which led to Slavica proceeding no further with the respective legal actions.
Ecclestone became convinced that the real motive behind the allegations was a cheap political tactic to cause him deep embarrassment at a time when he was having discussions to stage a Grand Prix in Croatia. The allegations were made in the Croatian tabloid just a month before Ecclestone and Slavica were scheduled to meet the country’s Prime Minister, Zlatko Maltese, and President Franjo Tudjman, who were keen for the newly independent state to enjoy the international prestige and exposure of a regular Formula One race. The meeting went ahead but Slavica was said to have been ‘deeply uncomfortable’. Said Ecclestone: ‘The guy who made the allegations, who claimed he’d slept with her, and she had been with the KGB and all that sex stuff, was put up to it. It was all political, and done to discredit me by people who don’t want a Grand Prix in Croatia. But it will happen. Those people don’t know me.’ The public humiliation of his wife, and the anguish it caused their two daughters, then aged nine and 14, angered Ecclestone. A month after the trial he was still seeking retribution. The apology, he said, came too late. ‘I am pursuing it – and I will do whatever it takes to nail him [Blagojevic].’
Ecclestone has a ferocious sense of protection towards his family. He gave me a demonstration of this paternalism two days after I had called at the detached home in Chislehurst, Kent, of the daughter of his first marriage, from whom I had hoped to gain a more accurate understanding of the man behind the headlines and rumours. In a brief conversation on her doorstep, Deborah firmly but courteously refused to respond to questions about her father. Similarly, his first wife, Ivy, when contacted through relatives, had also declined to be interviewed. Given the circumstances, the inquiries were cordial and there was no complaint from either woman.
Then came the telephone call: ‘Mr Lovell? It’s Mr Ecclestone here. I am told you have been aggravating my relatives. If you continue to cause my family aggravation, or publish anything about me, I will cause you aggravation. Don’t cause aggravation to my family.’ This was Ecclestone at his hard-nut best. The fact that what he had been told was far from the truth was no defence. The fact that someone had dared to approach members of his family was all that mattered, irrespective of the circumstances. It’s not the way to do it with Bernie. That kind of thing is outside of his control, and he doesn’t like it. If you want to know something about Bernie, ask him and he’ll tell you. Of course, his answers might depend on the mood he’s in. But that’s all right. Bernie has said it, so there’s no problem. It’s gospel. (Twelve months later Ecclestone c
alled again – this time with an offer to ‘buy your book or turn it into an autobiography’. Both offers were declined.)
A firm rebuttal led to a marked change of attitude – and an invitation to call his secretary to arrange an appointment to see him. It took place three months later at the offices of Formula One Administration in Princes Gate, Knightsbridge – a black glass-fronted nine-storey building formerly owned by arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and for which Ecclestone paid £7 million in 1985, plus a further £2 million in refurbishments two years later, all reportedly in cash – splendidly located opposite Hyde Park. The entrance door opened to a narrow hallway, flanked either side by a row of modern works of art, leading to an expensive-looking reception desk behind which sat a slim and elegant receptionist – Gucci and cool efficiency sprung to mind.
There was ample room for an easy chair or two, but none was provided. It was, I was told, Ecclestone’s way of keeping his visitors literally on their toes: let them stand, keep them tense. Fifteen minutes late, disappointing in someone who prides himself on his punctuality, he emerged from a hallway, grim and unsmiling. I was offered a papal handshake – fingers only – without comment, and a nod of the head as a greeting. Easy, lithe movements belied his 70-odd years, as, without further word, he wheeled round to retrace his steps to his office, which was the size of a small drawing room and not dissimilarly furnished. To the left was a large and, surprisingly, untidy desk, and, to the right, the informality of a coffee table, sofa and armchairs. The room, with floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooked a magnificent lawn, fountain and immaculate flower beds.
He settled his slim, slight frame behind his desk to present a gaunt visage of hollow cheeks and stone-dead eyes, sensitive to bright light and protected by faintly tinted glasses, above which hung a fringe of silvery-grey hair. It was a face that matched well the threatening voice on the phone. He began by setting out the rules of engagement, which, at a stroke, seemed to make the interview redundant: nothing biographical should be published about him or his family, with the rider that if anything was published that was untrue he would take action ‘without limitation’. As for his past business activities or his work with FOCA, he couldn’t remember any of the details. Because of the controversy over the secret £1-million donation to the Labour Party, which at that time had not been long out of the news, he wanted to keep a low profile. He also laid down a time limit of 45 minutes.
He is wary of the media, and probably with good reason. Until the £1-million donation controversy made him front-page news, he was little known outside of Formula One. It was a traumatic affair, isolated as he was between politicians scrambling to cover their backs and journalists scrambling for headlines. Ecclestone puts journalists in the same category as politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats – a breed to be trusted at one’s peril. At the same time, the mistrust could be reciprocated. One of the contradictions of the man is that he is honest enough to admit his inclination to dissemble. He will, he has said, be deliberately evasive if it suits him. For this reason it is not always easy, through his public utterances, to understand what makes Bernie run. There are notable examples to be found in interviews he has given to broadsheet newspapers. In one he claimed to have little interest in money, while in another he said it was the yardstick with which he measured his success. In another interview he said he feared nothing, not even death, while in a magazine article he claimed he ‘probably’ didn’t say it. He told one interviewer that as a child he had to fend for himself out of necessity, while he told another that no, he didn’t have a tough upbringing.
Some 50 minutes after the interview deadline had passed, we had got through a host of topics, including the very items he had deemed taboo – him, his family, FOCA, and his £1-million donation to the Labour Party – although some questions were parried with vagueness of detail, while others were treated with a refreshing unpretentiousness and politically incorrect candour, creating in that instant a hint of friendliness that would disappear in the next. At the end of the interview he courteously escorted me to the front door of the building, where, as I walked away, he engaged in a quick crack with some pickaxe-wielding labourers carrying out road repairs. It was an interesting study: the matey, working-class Ecclestone who still has time for the lads.
Even now his working-class background continues to fuel his aggression, a legacy of the back streets of his youth, where the law was laid down by whoever could hit the hardest. If you get hurt, you hurt back or lose respect; only a mug stands for it. When I asked him if he really would seek revenge if he were slighted or crossed, he replied: ‘I have a long memory … I have a long memory.’ In recounting Ecclestone’s determination to avenge a wrongdoing, a team owner said: ‘If you fuck him, he will come back at you two years later. He did that to me ten years ago. Recently he said to me, “We understand each other now.”’5
In a lengthy interview in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, when asked about his ‘scary reputation’, he replied: ‘You cross me and sooner or later I’ll get you. I may not get you beaten up or chopped up, but one day I’ll level the score.’ In the same interview, reference was made to a newspaper report in which he said he was ‘so angry’ at the lack of police success in finding the muggers responsible for the theft of his wife’s £600,000 ring outside their Chelsea home, that ‘I did some inquiries myself and found out who they were – but they have not been arrested.’6 The implication was that he judicially resolved the matter himself. He declined to confirm or deny the accuracy of the report, but said in reply: ‘I’ve never killed anybody. You’d hear about it if I had.’ Yet in another broadsheet interview, when asked if his reputation for being someone to be frightened of was fair, he replied: ‘Probably.’ Why cultivate it? ‘I don’t cultivate it. It’s a matter of fact.’
It is this kind of media coverage that has led over the years to a public perception of a dark and menacing character whom it would be best not to cross, an image that Ecclestone has gone out of his way to promote, despite his claims to the contrary. At the same time, although there is something sad and disquieting about a man worth £3 billion and in his seventies continuing to find it necessary to use threats of violence to state his case, Ecclestone is not himself a hard man. Like many of his breed, his courage is in the power of his money and in the intimidation of the revenge he might wreak, an age-old armoury that shields the weaknesses and insecurities that drive him.
It is, again, his upbringing that has led to his Mafioso-like protection of his family. The unwritten rule was to keep the police and the authorities out of it. You sorted it out face to face. But, for all the strength of the bonds with his family, his pursuit of money has inevitably has come at a high price. His life has been a workaholic existence of 16-hour, or even longer, days, seven days a week. It was not uncommon for him to rise at 5.30am to fly to, say, Paris for an 8.30am meeting, returning to his office in London at noon for a round of meetings that would keep him at his desk until late at night, to be interrupted only for a sandwich when he felt hungry.
His only hobby, and one that fitted in with his hectic, jet-hopping business life, has been to amass a world-class collection of Japanese netsuke ivory miniatures, many of which he purchased when time allowed at overseas Grands Prix. The demands of his schedule were such that he tried to spend ‘at least half a day’ with his family at weekends; and, as for Christmas, he saw it as ‘an unnecessary waste of time’, while a Grand Prix, he once said, ‘was about the nearest I get to having a holiday’.
His relationship with his parents also suffered. He once said: ‘I do have parents, contrary to popular belief, but I don’t see them much nowadays. I haven’t the time. I saw my father a couple of years ago. I suppose I don’t have anything in common with them. I don’t get involved in normal domestic affairs.’ Whatever the relationship between Ecclestone and his parents, or its complexity, he was unable to bring himself to attend the chapel at their funeral services. His father, Sidney, who retired as a car salesman, died from a heart atta
ck shortly before his 87th birthday, at St Albans City Hospital, Hertfordshire, in 1990.
Ecclestone left the funeral arrangements to his younger sister, Marian Tingey, a widowed mother of three who lives a modest life in a Hertfordshire suburb. Although, she said, he was in the grounds of the church, he refused to attend the chapel service. ‘He felt he couldn’t go in there. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask him.’ Ecclestone also felt unable to attend the chapel service at the funeral of his 89-year-old mother, Bertha, after she died from bronchopneumonia in a private nursing home five years later. Said Marian: ‘I think he was very, very upset when they both died. I think he felt he couldn’t again attend (the chapel service) because of … perhaps, he felt his emotions … he didn’t want to show his emotions … I think perhaps he felt he couldn’t cope with it … I don’t know.’
If Ecclestone distanced himself from his parents, his relationship with his sister became no less detached. Apart from the occasions of their parents’ funerals, they have rarely met, although he did attend her wedding in 1958. ‘I suppose that was something. As a family we were never close, like a lot of families are close,’ Marian said, then adding, almost self-consolingly, ‘but I know he’s there if needed.’ Birthday cards and personal seasonal greetings were not exchanged either. ‘I get a Christmas card, but I think that is probably because I am on the Christmas card list from the office, as opposed to a personal Christmas card. But then I don’t think that’s strange. I’ve been his sister for 59 years and to me that’s the way it’s always been.’