Share

IAAF cancels awards ceremony after Lamine Diack investigation opens

French prosecutors have claimed Papa Massata Diack, the son of the former head of world athletics Lamine Diack, was part of an alleged “system of corruption” that also included his father and sought to blackmail athletes who had failed drug tests.

Advertisement

The son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack, who is embroiled in a corruption scandal, faces disciplinary charges from the governing body.

Wada then said that the IC’s chair, Dick Pound, would be making public his findings in Geneva on Monday.

WADA has been investigating serious doping allegations within athletics since January and information collected by its Independent Commission during this time has led to the latest developments in Monaco.

At the same time, an anonymous source of the business daily Kommersant said that corrupt machinations of the former IAAF president were not a secret for insiders. He was formally placed under police investigation alongside Habib Cisse, the former IAAF legal adviser.

He was already due to appear before the select committee, which is investigating blood doping, but Jesse Norman, the chairman, said that British MPs may have other questions.

Officers visited the headquarters of worldwide athletics in Monaco on Tuesday and took documents, a statement from the IAAF confirmed.

“The IAAF is fully cooperating with all investigations as it has been from the beginning of the process, ” it said.

The IAAF Ethics Commission statement comes after news this week that Lamine Diack is under investigation by French prosecutors.

He said Diack is suspected of pocketing in the region of 1 million euros ($1.2 million), paid by the Russian athletics federation, a few of it in cash. So, too, was Gabriel Dolle, a doctor who managed the IAAF anti-doping program.

Athletics lurched deeper into crisis on Friday with the showcase sport of the Olympics scrapping its year-end gala after French officials began investigating the ruling body’s former president for corruption. “You have to understand that now there are a lot of criminal cases around the world, and it is not an easy situation to be in”.

Reuters was not immediately able to reach Diack himself for comment.

An IOC spokesman said: “The global Olympic Committee is standing for clean sports and good governance. It is therefore following these ongoing inquiries very closely and awaits the full facts coming to light”. Seb Coe needs to stand there and say, ‘I will make all necessary changes.’ I’m hoping he will take those steps, but at the moment I’ve not seen any.

Advertisement

Elected on a strong anti-doping platform, Coe said this week in India: “It’s not uniquely a track and field problem”.

Olympics: IOC refers Lamine Diack case to ethics commission