“A bid process did not take place when Osaka was awarded the 2007 World Championships”, said Coe, who reportedly earns some £100,000 (142,000 euros) a year in his role as ambassador for Nike.
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The Russian athletics federation ARAF has accepted a full suspension from athletics competitions, the ruling body IAAF said on Thursday.
He also says – correctly – that he has always declared the Nike relationship, both to the House of Lords and the IAAF’s ethics committee.
In a press conference following a meeting of the IAAF’s council in Monaco, Coe admitted his role had become a distraction.
He also said that the decision had not been prompted by a BBC report published earlier this week which focused on an “internal Nike email” and the decision to award the 2021 IAAF World Championships to Eugene. “It is a distraction to the 18-hour days that I and my teams are working to steady the ship”.
The former two-time Olympic 1,500-meter champion is battling suggestions that his long-standing ties to Nike Inc. are no longer appropriate and pose a possible conflict of interest now that he is overseeing the sport. Coe however denies lobbying on behalf of Eugene or Nike.
The report came as the International Association of Athletics Federations council met in Monaco with mounting pressure on Coe over the Oregon-based multinational sportswear firm and doping in Russia.
“If I understand Sebastian Coe correctly, he said, ‘I agree that the procedure wasn’t correct, ‘ but he claims he wasn’t involved in this, others are”, Eriksson said.
Much of Thursday’s meeting was taken up with an agenda item entitled “integrity and governance” as the IAAF seeks to reform itself in the wake of criticism from WADA’s commission and against a background of Coe’s presidential predecessor Lamine Diack facing a French police investigation into doping-related corruption.
The decision by Russia’s athletics federation not to contest the ban and its additional promise to work “very hard” to tackle doping represented a modest victory for Sebastian Coe, the embattled president of the International Association of Athletics Federations.
The IAAF also announced that Coe had cancelled the contract for a ” permanent serviced apartment in the five star Fairmont Hotel” for the president immediately on taking office.
He has been repeatedly advised to park the Nike deal.
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Diack, 82, is alleged to have received more than one million euros in bribes to cover up positive doping tests, an act that allowed Russian athletes to keep competing on the world stage.
