One of the co-authors of the report into allegations of extortion, bribes and doping cover-ups in athletics said that it would reveal “a whole different scale of corruption” than that which has engulfed FIFA, adding that the findings would be a “real game-changer for sport," according to John Goodbody of the SUNDAY TIMES.
Richard McLaren, a Canadian law professor and sports lawyer, "is one of the three men charged by the World Anti-Doping Agency" into investigating allegations of widespread and systematic drug-taking and malpractice. The report, which has taken 11 months to compile, "will be published in Geneva" on Monday. He said, "Unlike FIFA where you have a bunch of old men, who put a lot of extra money in their pockets, here you potentially have a bunch of old men who put a whole lot of extra money in their pockets -- through extortion and bribes -- but also caused significant changes to actual results and final standings of international athletics competitions. This is a whole different scale of corruption than the FIFA scandal or the IOC scandal in respect to Salt Lake City" (SUNDAY TIMES, 11/8). In London, Harris, Kelner & Draper wrote McLaren said that the report will run to "several hundred pages" and "be a real game-changer for sport." He said, "Those other scandals involved a failure of the governance of the organizations that enabled [officials] to line their pockets. But despite all of that misconduct, it didn't really effect what went on, say with FIFA, at the World Cup, on the playing field." The Independent Commission's findings will be published as the French legal authorities "continue to work on a case" in which the former IAAF President Lamine Diack stands accused of receiving more than £714,000 ($1.1M) in bribes to cover up positive doping tests of Russian athletes. The IC, chaired by former WADA President Dick Pound, also comprises McLaren and former Interpol exec and cybercrime expert Gunter Younger. Their report is expected to "confirm all the major allegations made by German broadcasters ARD." It is expected that the IC "will effectively find Russia guilty of running a state-sponsored doping programme and implicate former IAAF employees in bribery and corruption" (DAILY MAIL, 11/8).
FAMILY AFFAIR: The AP's John Leicester reported French authorities investigating Diack said that one of his sons was also "very active" in an alleged "system of corruption" that sought to blackmail athletes, with demands of money to hush-up suspected doping. France's national financial prosecutor said that "investigators have verified" that Diack, who presided for nearly 16 years at track and field's governing body, pocketed 'more than €1M ($1.1M) from the alleged cash-for-silence scheme. Prosecutor Eliane Houlette said that evidence from WADA that triggered the French probe suggests that a Turkish athlete, as well as athletes from Russia, "was a victim of a blackmail attempt allegedly involving Diack's family."
According to WADA's findings, at least one of Diack's sons "approached Turkish runner Asli Cakir Alptekin" a few months after she won Gold in the 1,500m at the 2012 London Olympics and suggested she "could pay to quash a doping positive based on her blood readings." Houlette:
"It was a sort of blackmail. She refused." Houlette said the son, Papa Massata Diack, who worked under his father as an IAAF marketing consultant, "is also thought to have played a 'very active' role in the alleged corruption." She said,
"We didn't arrest Mr. Diack's son because he didn't come to Paris when he was meant to. But he is also implicated in this affair. We haven't had the opportunity to arrest him in France. We would have done so if we could" (AP, 11/6). REUTERS' Gene Cherry wrote the son of Diack and three other sports officials "have been charged with concealing Russian athlete Liliya Shobukhova's doping violations."
Papa Massata Diack "was charged with various alleged breaches of the IAAF's Code of Ethics." The others charged were Valentin Balakhnichev, former president of the All-Russia Athletic Federation and a former IAAF treasurer, Alexei Melnikov, ex-Russian coach for long-distance walkers and runners, and Gabriel Dolle, former director of the IAAF’s Anti-Doping Department.
Hearings to consider their cases "will take place in London next month" (REUTERS, 11/8).
DROPPING THE HAMMER: In London, Owen Gibson reported when Diack bade farewell to 16 years as president of the IAAF, he "departed with a bitter, incoherent rant against the media in general and The Guardian in particular, and an insistence that athletics did not have a doping problem." His replacement, Sebastian Coe, meanwhile, "sat alongside him and spoke of his 'deep affection' and 'great admiration' for Diack." If Coe's fulsome tributes "were explainable before his election by the need to stay ahead in a close race against his rival Sergey Bubka, after winning they could not help but now they appear ill-judged." When Pound sits down to speak to the world’s press at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Geneva on Monday "he will deliver another hammer blow to a sport on its knees." Just as the Swiss police raids at the behest of the U.S. Department of Justice in May "blew the lid off a Pandora’s box of festering FIFA corruption that had been building for years," so the arrests of Diack, Cissé and Dollé in France "threaten to expose the dark underbelly of track and field" (GUARDIAN, 11/7).
