Review told Black and Fudge ‘blackmailed’ UKA over Salazar

Performance staff at UK Athletics opposed cutting ties with American coach Alberto Salazar when doping allegations surfaced in 2015, an independent report has found.

The UKA board had been set to recommend that 5,000 metres and 10,000m Olympic champion Sir Mo Farah end his relationship with Salazar, after allegations against the American were made in a BBC

documentary. However, an independent report published yesterday found performance director Neil Black and head of endurance Barry Fudge indicated their positions would be “untenable” if the Salazar link was axed.

Farah was ultimately given a choice of whether or not to continue working with Salazar, and chose to stay with him.

Some members of the UKA board told the independent report’s author, John Mehrzad QC, that this stance by Black and Fudge was “in effect blackmail”, something they denied.

Black left his role at UKA last October.

The Mehrzad report looked at internal reviews conducted in 2015 and 2017 into the relationship between UKA, Farah and Salazar. It was commissioned afterthe US Anti-doping Agency banned Salazar for four years for doping violations. He has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Following the 2015 review, UKA suspended its unpaid consultancy arrangement with Salazar for reputational reasons but ultimately gave Farah the final decision on whether to continue being coaching by him – something he continued to do until October 2017.

The 2015 internal review concluded there was “no concern” in allowing the relationship between Farah and Salazar to continue.

The 2017 review did not bring any change to that relationship either.

However, UKA did not know that in June 2017 USADA had charged Salazar. UKA said in a statement yesterday that, if it had, the board would have severed all ties immediately.

Mehrzad concluded the decisions made by both review groups “were reasonable at the time”.

Farah has never failed a drugs test and is not accused of any wrongdoing.