Coe aides tried to blow whistle
TWO of Lord Coe’s closest a i des have emerged as key witnesses in the corruption scandal that has now resulted in life bans for three senior officials and a five-year suspension for the former head of the IAAF’s anti-doping division.
As Sportsmail revealed last month, Huw Roberts, the man appointed by IAAF president Coe to be the organisation’s senior legal counsel, was among the first to raise the alarm in January 2013. He even twice threatened to resign when he realised the body had delayed sanctioning Russian athletes who were guilty of doping violations.
Even before that, Thomas Capdevielle, an IAAF doping official, voiced his concern that former London Marathon winner Liliya Shobukhova was competing in the 2012 Olympics when he had known since late 2011 that she should have been facing a ban.
Their concerns were highlighted in a 118-page report published by the IAAF ethics commission yesterday and last night the governing body s ought to explain why Roberts and Capdevielle did not raise the issue externally.
‘By the end of 2012, Huw and Thomas knew that there had been a delay in the follow-up to a number of Russian cases, including Liliya Shobukhova,’ said an IAAF statement. ‘They had no idea at that time of any corrupt behaviour.
‘They relayed their concerns about the delay to the IAAF president Lamine Diack and were assured that the cases would be dealt with properly by the Russian federation, and the athletes would not be permitted to compete while the charges were pending.’
Foll owing a hearing in London last month, Diack’s son Papa Massata Diack, onetime Russian athletics chief Valentin Balakhnichev and coach Alexey Melnikov were all banned for life for their part in blackmailing athletes in exchange for hiding offences.
Gabriel Dolle, who was the IAAF’s anti- doping director, was banned for five years. The ethics commission, headed by Michael Beloff QC, stated: ‘They acted dishonestly and corruptly and did unprecedented damage to the sport, which they have brought into serious disrepute.’
Coe has al r eady been quizzed by MPs as to how much he knew of the scandal before succeeding Diack as president in August.
Yesterday, a spokesperson for Coe insisted Roberts had never discussed his concerns with the then vice-president, adding that not until he became president had Coe had any kind of dialogue with Capdevielle.
Some of the circumstances around the blackmail of Shobukhova remain shocking. In exchange for removing her name from a list of Russian athletes with suspicious blood passport profiles, she paid €450,000 (£336,000) in bribes.
When it became clear Shobukhova could not be protected from sanction, a transfer of €300,000 was paid back to the Russian distance runner, with the corrupt officials confirming the payment had been made.
Lamine Diack, who is the subject of a criminal investigation in France on suspicion of taking more than £750,000 to cover up positive tests, gets little mention.
That said, the ethics commission say both Diack Sn rand his former legal adviser Habib Cisse are being investigated.
But evidence submitted by IAAF official Sean Wallace-Jones said Diack dared claim he had not spoken to his son, Papa Massata, in years.
The commission’s report also refers to allegations from Russia’s deputy s ports minister, Yuri Nagorny, that ‘at least’ five other Russian athletes were involved.
Based on information from Nagorny, the report states that ‘a system was put in place at IAAF level under which athletes with an abnormal blood passport profile would be allowed to keep competing at high level in exchange for cash payments made to the IAAF’.
The governing body said it was ‘ angered to see that i ndividuals have, in t he panel’s finding, “conspired to extort what were in substance bribes from the athlete by acts of blackmail”.
‘The IAAF has introduced measures to make sure this can’t happen again.’