COE WRIGGLES OFF THE HOOK

He’s ‘oblivious’ to bribes and doping but still MPs can’t find a smoking gun

LORD COE was yesterday accused by MPs of a ‘lack of curiosity’ during a marathon Select Committee hearing into corruption in athletics. On a day when the Italian athletics federation announced that 26 of their athletes had been banned for two years for avoiding drugs tests — with another 39 under investigation — the president of the crisis-hit IAAF was asked how he could have been so oblivious to the doping scandal threatening his sport.

Before being elected president of the IAAF in August, Coe was Lamine Diack’s vice-president. Diack is now the subject of an investigation by French authorities into allegations that he and his closest associates extorted money from athletes to cover up positive drug tests.

Paul Farrelly, the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, reminded Coe of how the same Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee had accused former BBC director-general George Entwistle of a ‘lack of curiosity’ over Jimmy Savile and Rupert Murdoch of ‘wilful blindness’ during the phone-hacking inquiry. ‘How would you describe your lack of curiosity?’ Farrelly then asked Coe.

‘Did I lack curiosity?’ replied Coe. ‘I don’t know. Never thought about it.’ Coe then reminded MPs that an investigation into Diack’s son, Papa Massata, and Diack’s legal adviser Habib Cisse were already under way by the time he declared Diack Snr the ‘spiritual leader’ of the sport in August.

Coe did then admit he would not have praised Diack in such glowing terms had he been aware of the allegations when he gave that speech in Beijing upon being elected president.

But he left his inquisitors stunned when he then suggested there were no firm plans to investigate Doha’s bids for both the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships when some of the allegations levelled at Papa Diack may involve the Qataris. Papa Diack is alleged to have requested £3.5million from Doha ahead of a 2017 bid that was won by London, and it is also alleged that Kenyan officials now under police investigation in their home country were given cars in exchange for supporting the 2019 bid, which Doha won.

Asked specifically if he thought the Doha bids were clean, Coe said: ‘Well, I don’t know.’

But again there appeared to be a lack of curiosity, with Coe dismissing the idea that the IAAF should endeavour to find out, despite echoes of the current FIFA World Cup bidding scandal.

‘The situation is very clear,’ said Coe. ‘The ethics committee will look at those investigations.’ But that was a reference only to Kenya and Papa Diack and did not extend to the possibility of looking more specifically at Qatar as well.

‘Will you investigate?’ asked Farrelly. After Coe failed to give a direct answer, Farrelly said: ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

Not for the first time since becoming IAAF president, Coe’s response to certain questions was far from satisfactory and MPs better briefed on aspects of the athletics crisis might not have given him such an easy ride during the three-hour hearing. That said, he was pressed hard on some subjects by Farrelly, Damian Collins and John Nicolson as well as the committee chairman, Jesse Norman.

Indeed, when Coe refused to give his support to the publication of a 2011 academic report which suggested that nearly 30 per cent of athletes might have doped, Norman said his response was ‘very unsatisfactory’.

The list of athletes recommended for suspension by the Italians includes Fabrizio Donato, the bronze medallist in the triple jump at the 2012 London Olympics, Andrew Howe, silver medallist in the long jump at the 2007 World Championships and Alex Schwazer, gold medallist in the 50km race walk at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, who has already been banned for doping.

COE remained evasive on other matters, once again refusing to acknowledge that the paid position he gave up at Nike last week had constituted an alarming conflict of interest. Coe said he had long disclosed his links to Nike. Norman, however, stressed that ‘ interests can conflict whether disclosed or not’.

But Coe did at least admit that he chose his words unwisely when he described the publication of leaked data pointing to widespread doping in the sport as a ‘declaration of war’.

‘It probably expressed my frustration and anger at the time,’ he conceded before adding that, in hindsight, he ‘probably would have chosen different language’. ‘I’m sorry this has mutated into an attack on the media,’ he added.

Even so, there remained a lack of humility. He said the welfare of athletes who use drugs was not his primary concern — a remarkable statement that conflicts with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s mandate to protect athletes as well as the integrity of sport. Coe did express his intention to reach out to the whistleblowers, in particular to Vitaliy and Yuliya Stepanov, the couple who remain in hiding after helping to expose a state-sponsored doping programme in Russia. ‘I will be speaking to the whistleblowers,’ he insisted.

Collins questioned the IAAF’s apparent determination to ignore blood data prior to the introduction of the blood passport in 2009, and Norman suggested the governing body had essentially allowed ‘500-odd athletes’ listed among the 5,000 in the database first published by The Sunday Times to slip off the hook because of their pre-2009 policy.

An increasingly chastened Coe was alarmingly vague on how long he had served on the FIFA ethics committee. He initially said ‘around a year’ when it was nearer three.

The controversial decision to award Eugene the 2021 World Championships without a formal bidding process left Coe flustered. The MPs were undermined by a lack of knowledge about an American city synonymous not just with Nike but with US track and field, but Collins was right to press him on a conversation he had with a Nike executive when he was the IAAF vice-president.

‘You could have said to the Nike executive who asked about Oregon 2021, “I don’t think this is appropriate”, given your conflict of interest,’ said Collins. The MPs also challenged Coe when he suggested the Eugene games were not of any commercial interest to Nike.

Coe was asked if, as ‘an insider’, he was ‘the right person to clean up the sport now’. He insisted he was. ‘I have to because if I don’t there will be no tomorrows for this sport,’ he said.

Even so, he insisted he was ‘ oblivious’ to the allegations that have been made against Diack.

Oblivious, too, to the issues with an anti- doping system seemingly set up to protect drug cheats.