Just as the IAAF is "about to endorse wide-ranging changes to its governance aimed at making the organization more ethical, transparent and accountable," the body is "being assailed by more claims of corruption," according to Mitch Phillips of REUTERS. IAAF Council officials will receive on Thursday an update from the task force looking at progress being made on anti-doping in Russia and "whether there is any indication that the country could return to the athletics fold a year after being banned." On Saturday, IAAF President Sebastian Coe will present to the IAAF Congress his much-trumpeted "Time for Change" document, which will introduce a "raft of measures" to alter the way his organization is run and policed. While Coe's focus is "determinedly on the future, the stories still swirling around the IAAF's past refuse to go away." French newspaper Le Monde and German broadcaster ARD said last week that they have seen evidence of "demands for payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars by Russian athletes to IAAF officials in exchange for covering up failed drug tests." The documents were said to be from the ongoing investigation by French prosecutors into former IAAF President Lamine Diack, his son, Papa Massata Diack, and others over "alleged corruption and money-laundering" (REUTERS, 11/30). The AP reported the IAAF launched "an online portal for reporting suspicions of doping." The body said that the secure portal on its home page "is available in six languages and offers full confidentiality." The federation "asks people to report any information related to evidence or suspicion of doping," knowledge of coaches and support personnel who encourage cheating, trafficking of banned substances, and new doping products (AP, 11/29).
