Sebastian Coe fumes at cloud hanging over IAAF after bribery allegations
Sunday 8 November 2015 09:48, UK
International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president Sebastian Coe admits he finds the allegations of bribery within athletics "abhorrent".
Coe was making his first public response to the scandal that has hit the sport's governing body and seen former president Lamine Diack placed under official investigation.
The 82-year-old Senegalese is alleged to have received almost £1m in bribes in 2011 to cover up positive doping tests of Russian athletes, the office of France's financial prosecutor said during the week.
One of Diack's sons and three other sports officials, two who held IAAF positions, have also been charged with violations by the IAAF ethics committee.
"That people in our sport have allegedly extorted money from athletes guilty of doping violations is abhorrent," Coe said.
"That they were not able to cover up the doping results is testament to the system that the IAAF and WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] have jointly put in place."
Coe took over from Diack in August and he has promised stronger action will be taken by the IAAF during his administration.
"Where there are fragilities in the system that may have allowed extortion, no matter how unsuccessful, we will strengthen them," he added.
"And the independent integrity unit which I will establish next month will include an independent tribunal to hear all integrity-related violations committed by international level athletes and their support personnel.
"We will take the hearing process out of the hands of individual member federations."
