It said a “rogue group” had in effect formed an illegitimate “informal governance structure”, allowing “dirty” athletes, especially from Russian Federation, to continue competing if they paid huge sums of money to cover up positive dope tests.
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“There was an evident lack of political appetite within the IAAF to confront Russian Federation with the full extent of its known and suspected doping activities”.
Urging the current IAAF leaders, headed by president Sebastian Coe, to accept responsibility for the past, the report advises that “continued denial will simply make it more hard to make genuine progress”.
Afterwards, Pound told reporters that it would have been hard for Coe to act alone even though all IAAF Council members would have been aware of the nepotism and problems with Russian doping.
Dick Pound expects the IAAF to investigate allegations that former president Lamine Diack was influenced by sponsorship payments when he cast his vote for which city should host the 2020 Olympic Games.
Pound’s report added to a rapidly growing scandal involving organised doping and its concealment that has rocked world athletics and drawn comparison with a corruption and governance scandal at football’s governing body FIFA. “There’s enormous amount of reputational recovery that has to occur here, and I can’t… think of anyone better than Lord Coe to lead that”. Then IAAF President Lamine Diack effectively turned the body into a fiefdom, with a “close inner circle” including two of his sons, Papa Massata and Khalil, and his personal legal counsel, Habib Cisse.
– Coe has performed a U-turn and acknowledged that there was an IAAF cover-up, but maintains he was personally unaware of any corruption and has vowed there can be no repeat of such a “horror show”.
Several IAAF staff have said they sought to draw attention to the doping abuses to leaders but were ignored. His first report detailed corruption inside the Russian track team and also alleged that doping in Russia was state sponsored.
Coe took over the IAAF last August when Diack stood down.
Last week, the ethics committee banned three senior officials for life for their role in corruption and blackmail, including the former head of the Russian athletics federation and former IAAF treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev. I know that. We are a failed organisation. Now resigned IAAF anti-doping department director Gabriel Dolle was also involved.
Speaking on the BBC, he said: “I find it very hard for Lord Coe to say he has got absolutely no clue – the only way is if a vice-president is a titular position that has no real contact with the sport”. According to its website, Interpol has also posted a wanted person’s alert for Papa Massata Diack, Mr. Diack’s son who had served as a marketing consultant to the IAAF.
The report wasn’t as revelatory as the first part of investigation made public in November.
“The escalating number of positive tests that the IAAF Council commented on during my time was clearly a concern”.
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Coe admitted there had not been enough oversight and the IAAF should have been more aware of what was going on and AA boss Phil Jones backed the former English Olympian, saying “Seb Coe is as shocked and concerned about the impact this has as anybody else”.
