Coe faces parliament grilling
Sebastian Coe will today be asked whether he is the right man to lead world athletics out of crisis when he appears before MPs.
|||Sebastian Coe will today be asked whether he is the right man to lead world athletics out of crisis when he appears before MPs.
And members determined to discuss in detail the doping scandal with the recently elected president of the IAAF will want to know how much he knew as it emerged that his senior legal counsel was one of two British officials who raised the alarm at the governing body as early as January 2013.
Coe is sure to be quizzed by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee as to why he was so supportive of his predecessor, Lamine Diack. The 82-year-old is now the subject of an investigation by French authorities into allegations of extorting money from athletes to cover up positive drugs tests. The claims mainly concern Russian athletes now exposed by an independent World Anti-Doping Agency commission to have been part of a ‘state-sponsored’ doping system.
He will also be challenged on his reluctance, until last week, to sever his links with Nike. The double Olympic gold medallist resigned from his £100,000-a-year post as a brand ambassador for the American sportswear giant but insisted he had only done so because of the ‘noise’ created by the media and not because it was a conflict of interest.
Coe has maintained that the accusations levelled at Diack, who was arrested by French authorities last month along with former IAAF anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle and the former president’s legal adviser Habib Cisse, came as a shock to him despite serving as his vice-president for seven years. Upon being elected as president, Coe had described Diack as the ‘spiritual leader’ of the sport.
Not until German broadcaster ARD aired a documentary last December about Russian state doping and possible corruption involving Diack and his son, Papa Massata, did the IAAF even appear to react to the suggestion that their sport had serious problems.
But senior figures within the association had long had concerns, with IAAF legal counsel Huw Roberts even threatening to resign from his position.
In January 2013, Roberts went to Diack deeply troubled by the delay in sanctioning Russian athletes who had failed drugs tests in 2011, fearing there were issues with the organisation’s anti-doping procedures.
In July 2015, Roberts did leave the IAAF, joining Bird and Bird’s International Sports Group as a leading sports lawyer. Having also worked with the World Anti-Doping Agency, however, it was announced that Roberts would continue to advise the IAAF. Bird and Bird have long represented the IAAF in doping cases.
In September Coe, having been elected the previous month, made Roberts one of his first appointments, inviting him to represent the governing body as senior legal counsel.
Right now it is unclear whether Roberts shared his concerns with other senior members of the IAAF hierarchy. Yesterday the IAAF said he was not available for comment. But a spokeswoman for Coe said Roberts had ‘never spoken to Seb about any concerns with Russian athletes’.
Sean Wallace-Jones, who is the head of road running at the IAAF, also raised the alarm after being contacted by the agent of disgraced Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova. It is believed that Andrei Baranov told Wallace-Jones that Shobukhova had paid £350,000 to cover up a positive test, only to then receive a two-year ban after irregularities were detected in her biological passport.
Wallace-Jones, who was also unavailable for comment yesterday, is believed to have reported Baranov’s claims to the IAAF ethics commission, with Baranov eventually submitting a statement. Indeed, in December 2014 the IAAF responded to some of these revelations, published by the French sports daily L’Equipe, by confirming that there was ‘already an ongoing investigation by the IAAF ethics commission into these allegations’.
Again, a spokeswoman for Coe said the president had never spoken to Wallace-Jones about concerns over Russian athletes. It is, however, understood Roberts and Wallace-Jones did share their concerns with one another.
Today Coe will be grilled on the leaked database containing more than 12 000 blood tests from 5 000 athletes — taken between 2001 and 2012 — that was published by ARD and The Sunday Times in August. MPs will ask Coe why he considered evidence of widespread doping as ‘a declaration of war’ on his sport.
Coe will also be challenged on his role in the controversial awarding of the 2021 World Athletics Championships to Eugene earlier this year. Much to the disappointment of Swedish athletics officials representing Gothenburg, the American city that is synonymous with Nike was awarded the event without a formal bidding process. Coe, having apparently assured Gothenburg that there would be a fair and transparent process at the time, is believed to have voted for Eugene.
Last week, Bjorn Eriksson, the then head of Swedish athletics, revealed that in a conversation last week Coe had admitted the process of awarding the championships to Eugene was flawed. If he believes that now, the Select Committee might well ask, did Coe express that view to Diack at the time?
Earlier this year, Coe also voiced public support for Alberto Salazar when the head coach of the Nike Oregon Project was the subject of what remains an ongoing investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency. It might be worth asking if Coe had any discussions with Nike executives prior to making his statement.
Coe will be flanked today by two IAAF anti-doping experts in a bid to respond to some of the questions on doping.
But also of some interest to the Select Committee is the funding for Coe’s election campaign. It has already been declared that Coe received £63,000 in funding from UK Sport.
But UK Sport, mandated by the Government to support British sports administrators in trying to secure senior international leadership positions, also confirmed to Sportsmail this week that they provided the services of an international relations adviser to assist Coe in rising to power. The adviser served Coe for 13 months between August 2014 and September 2015, visiting 17 countries as part of his campaign and incurring subsistence expenses of £4,646.
Coe’s representatives have said two-thirds of his campaign was privately funded and senior sports officials have called for the need to be totally transparent and for him to reveal the identity of his supporters.
The Select Committee might well feel the same, although yesterday a spokeswoman for Coe said: ‘Seb chose to limit public funding into his campaign by using his own resources and private donations, which will remain private.’
The questions he could be asked...
Why did you consider the publication of a leaked database that exposed widespread doping in your sport ‘a declaration of war’?
Why did the IAAF publish a report on the database last week when the World Anti-Doping Agency commission are not due to report on the evidence until January?
You served as vice-president to Lamine Diack for seven years. You spoke of his positive influence on athletics, but when did you become aware of the corruption allegations against him?
What do you think of Lamine Diack now?
Why did you not see holding a paid position as a Nike ambassador as a conflict of interest?
Was it appropriate, in your then role as IAAF vice-president, to discuss the bidding process for the 2021 World Championships with a Nike official when the event was then awarded to Eugene — a city synonymous with Nike — without a formal bidding process?
If you now believe the process was flawed, did you raise your concerns with the then president, Lamine Diack?
Did Nike ask you to publicly support Alberto Salazar, the head coach at the Nike Oregon Project, who remains the subject of a doping investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency?
Was there another potential conflict when CSM, the sport and entertainment business you serve as executive chairman, had such strong links with the IAAF?
Are you the right man to lead athletics out of a crisis? – Daily Mail