Tag Archives: sebastian coe

IAAF provisionally suspends Russian Member Federation ARAF

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The Council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has provisionally suspended the All-Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF) as an IAAF Member with immediate effect.

The decision was taken at today’s 201st IAAF Council Meeting which was held by teleconference and chaired from London by IAAF President Sebastian Coe.

A total of 24 Members of Council took part in the meeting: 22 voted in favour of the sanction against ARAF, who have been officially informed of the Council’s decision, 1 voted against. The Council Member from Russia was not eligible to participate in the vote.

Commenting on the decision, IAAF President Sebastian Coe said: “Today we have been dealing with the failure of ARAF and made the decision to provisionally suspend them, the toughest sanction we can apply at this time. But we discussed and agreed that the whole system has failed the athletes, not just in Russia, but around the world.

“This has been a shameful wake up call and we are clear that cheating at any level will not be tolerated. To this end, the IAAF, WADA, the member federations and athletes need to look closely at ourselves, our cultures and our processes to identify where failures exist and be tough in our determination to fix them and rebuild trust in our sport. There can be no more important focus for our sport”

Frankie Fredericks read a statement on behalf of the IAAF Athletes Commission: “The IAAF Athletes’ Commission is extremely disappointed and concerned regarding the recent developments and allegations directed at our sport.”

“We are angry at the damage being caused to the reputation and credibility of athletics and are united alongside our President to not shy away from the major challenges that face our sport. The athletes will work together to continue the process of cleaning up athletics to ensure those athletes training and competing cleanly are not tainted by the minority.

“We send a clear message to clean athletes in a dirty system to report any doping or cheating that they see or hear about.  We are 100% in support of President Coe and believe that he is the leader that our sport needs to instigate the necessary actions swiftly and strongly.”

Using its powers under the IAAF Constitution Article 6.11(b) and Article 14.7 the members of the IAAF Council provisionally suspended ARAF on charges of breach of the Objects of the IAAF.

The IAAF’s Objects include amongst others developing and maintaining programmes aimed at eradicating doping from the sport and safeguarding the authenticity and integrity of Athletics.

CONSEQUENCES OF PROVISIONAL SUSPENSION

– athletes, and athlete support personnel from Russia may not compete in International Competitions including World Athletics Series competitions and the Olympic Games

– Russia will not be entitled to host the 2016 World Race Walking Team Championships (Cheboksary) and 2016 World Junior Championships (Kazan)*

– that ARAF delegates the conduct of all outstanding doping cases to CAS

The provisional suspension does not:

– prevent athletes in Russia from participating in domestic competitions

– remove or waive the obligations on international level athletes in Russia to comply with the IAAF Anti-Doping Rules, including continuing to be subject to out of competition testing

* IAAF will announce the reallocation or cancellation of these two IAAF World Athletics Series events as soon as possible.

NEXT STEPS

– Unless ARAF voluntarily accepts a full suspension, the IAAF is entitled to proceed to a full hearing on whether the provisional suspension should be made a full suspension.

– To regain membership to the IAAF the new federation would have to fulfil a list of criteria. An inspection team led by Independent Chair Rune Andersen, an independent international anti-doping expert (Norwegian) and three members of the IAAF Council who will be appointed in the next few days.

Other business

IAAF GOVERNANCE

President Sebastian Coe also took the Council through his reform programme.

He has asked Paul Deighton, former CEO of LOCOG and UK Government Minister, to oversee the programme which will be carried out by Deloitte.

Forensic accountants from Deloitte and the leading legal firm Freshfields began work at the IAAF HQ yesterday. He also told the Council that he will create an integrity unit for athletics consisting of an independent integrity board and review panels.

The unit will cover all areas of integrity for international level athletes and athlete support personnel (anti-doping, illegal betting, anti-corruption, transfers of allegiance and age manipulation).

Source: IAAF provisionally suspends Russian Member Federation ARAF | iaaf.org

Sport braced for damning revelations from anti-doping agency

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Reuters, 09/11 00:35 CET

By Mitch Phillips

LONDON (Reuters) – A report by the World Anti-Doping Agency on Monday is set to deepen an athletics scandal that, according to one of the document’s authors, eclipses even the alleged corruption at football’s governing body FIFA.

According to leaks to a French investigative news organisation, Mediapart, the WADA report will say that athletics officials tried to extort money from leading athletes, including a Turkish Olympic champion, in return for concealing the fact that they had failed drugs tests.

One of the co-authors of the report, Richard McLaren, a Canadian law professor and sports lawyer, told the Sunday Times: “This is a whole different scale of corruption than the FIFA scandal. This report is going to be a real game-changer.

“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.”

FIFA has been thrown into turmoil by the U.S. indictments of 14 football officials and sports marketing executives for alleged corruption, and its president Sepp Blatter is suspended and facing criminal investigation in Switzerland.

The former head of the International Association of Athletics Federations, Lamine Diack of Senegal, was last week placed under formal judicial investigation in France on suspicion of corruption, along with two other former IAAF officials.

His successor, Briton Sebastian Coe, told Reuters on Sunday: “My job is very simple now and there is no ambiguity about it. It is to rebuild trust in our sport.”

He said it would be “a long road to redemption”.

RUSSIAN CONNECTION

The WADA report, according to the leaked French account, is expected to implicate relations of Diack. One of his sons has left his marketing role within the IAAF while under investigation for corrupt practices. The family has dismissed what they described as excessive and insignificant accusations.

The report is also expected to single out former Russian athletics federation head Valentin Balakhnichev.

On Saturday Balakhnichev rejected allegations that his federation worked with top IAAF officials to try to blackmail athletes in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics.

“Let them present their claims to me, I will fight them,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.

Among athletes allegedly targeted for extortion was Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova, who featured in a German documentary in December 2014 that alleged systematic doping by Russian athletes.

Shobukhova was banned for doping and was stripped of marathon victories in London and Chicago. But two months ago, WADA cut her ban, saying she had provided it with important information to expose wrongdoing by others.

Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin, the 1,500 metres Olympic champion in 2012, was also approached by IAAF officials demanding payment of $500,000, according to the leaks.

She was give a second doping ban last summer and stripped of her Olympic medal.

On Sunday IAAF chief Coe said neither he nor anyone else at the IAAF had seen the report, but he was shocked and saddened by the accusations against his predecessor Diack.

“I will await the WADA report but I think the focus of those allegations was about the ability of people to be in a position to manipulate systems and that is what we will look at very carefully,” Coe told Reuters after announcing he had accelerated a planned internal reform process.

“If that is found to be the case, then clearly we need to have systems in place that are not just about secure systems but people inside those systems being secure and proper people.”

WADA will release its report at 1400 GMT on Monday and hold a news conference immediately afterwards in Geneva.

Source: Sport braced for damning revelations from anti-doping agency – Latest sport news