An outsourced and unaccountable marketing operation helped senior IAAF officials cover up doping results and facilitate corruption in general, according to WADA's independent commission report published Thursday. The WADA report recommended a “thorough forensic audit of the marketing functions as they relate to television and sponsorship functions,” including the "role and remuneration of any agents or consultants.” IAAF has no marketing division, and outsources most of its commercial activities to Denstu Sports Inc. Using that separation from direct governance channels, former IAAF President Lamine Diack created a de facto inner circle of consultants and shadow cabinet that included his son, Papa Massata Diack, under a long-term marketing contract. In one case, a Denstu division hired Singapore consultant Ian Tan Tong Han to advise on IAAF World Championships. Han is a close compatriot the Diacks, and his company, Black Tidings, was found to have paid around $325,000 to pay back Russian runner Liliya Shobukhova after an extortion scheme regarding her failed drug tests collapsed. Dentsu has not been accused of any wrongdoing. “There is an intricate linking of various marketing companies of consultants working on behalf of the IAAF marketing efforts,” the report reads. “Companies controlled by Papa Massata Diack, Kahlil Diack and Ian Tan Tong Han could easily be used to cover up improper payments associated with their personal activities.” IAAF Deputy Secretary General Nick Davies in '13 wrote an email to Papa Massata Diack to discuss ways of limiting the PR fallout from Russian doping results. The IAAF defends the letter as mere brainstorming, but the independent commission disagreed. It noted that the marketing officials should not even know about unpublished doping results under int'l doping rules. “It also underscores the extent to which a marketing consultant with a limited mandate was involved as part of an inner circle operating inside the IAAF,” the report reads. “Despite the IAAF’s attempt to distance the IAAF from [Papa Massata Diack], it is clear that he seems to have been regarded as de facto senior IAAF staff, including by the Deputy Secretary General.”
WHOLESALE REFORM RECOMMENDED: WADA’s report also recommends a wholesale reform of how the IAAF engages and oversees consultants. It suggested a conflict-of-interest policy about hiring consultants with close ties to management, and suggests any consultants have their terms of engagement and contract approved by the board, with annual reports required. The mingling of commercial matters and the IAAF’s governance of int'l track and field is troublesome in several ways, the report said. Aside from being tied into the doping scandal, it also raises the possibility that money influenced decisions to award IAAF World Championships to particular cities or even the Olympics. “I think we were fairly careful to say we have information that suggests this might be going on,” said chief investigator Dick Pound, a member of the IOC. “We do not have hard evidence, and we think the hard evidence could be discovered through a forensic audit, and we encourage that process to be undertaken.” The decision to award the '21 World Championships to Eugene, Oregon, without competitive bidding was not mentioned in the report. One piece of evidence suggested that Lamine Diack voted for Tokyo to host the 2020 Games instead of Istanbul because Turkey did not pay sponsorship fees of $4M-$5M to the IAAF.
