If [corruption] really was so rare, every ‘Fake Sheikh’ would prompt suspicion. Butno. Hence ready acceptance of such approaches

financial inducements, jobs, gifts, and even payment of medical treatment and college fees. All in return for votes for Olympic host cities. Some 20 IOC members were either expelled, resigned, or were sanctioned.

IOC members and their spouses enjoyed lavish hospitality during repeated visits before votes on host candidates. These visits were scrapped and a small evaluation commission produced a book on the cities. Among those investigated (and given a “serious warning”) was Russian member Vitaly Smirnov, an outspoken critic of the new evaluation process: “How can you fall in love with a woman by reading about her in a book?”

A former deputy sports minister of the Soviet Union, Smirnov was an IOC member from 1971 to 2015 and became an honorary member this year. In July Vladimir Putin proposed him as head of an “independent” commission on Russia’s doping scandal. “Such a commission should be headed by a person with an absolutely unimpeachable reputation,” said Putin.

Diack, proposed by Samaranch for the IOC in 1999, enjoyed similar misplaced trust, just like Blatter’s FIFA predecessor, Havelange. An IOC member for 48 years, he reportedly received diamonds, porcelain, and paintings in connection with the 1992 Olympic bid. Swiss prosecutors implicated Havelange in more than $40m of World Cup back-handers. Similarly trusted was Pat Hickey, a member of the 15-strong IOC executive board and another Samaranch protege. President of Ireland’s Olympic Committee and the European Olympic Committees which speak for 50 nations, Hickey was arrested, naked, in his hotel bathroom in Brazil on charges involving a scheme which stood to make more than £2m by reselling Olympic tickets. Europe’s most senior Olympic official denies wrong-doing, but has stood down meantime.

Sport seems incapable of policing itself. Governance of FIFA, the IOC, anti-doping, and a raft of global sport secretariats has been found wanting.

Whistle-blowers initiate far more investigation than such bodies themselves. Sport may be beyond redemption. The case for national and international regulation, to address corruption, is overwhelming.