Coe quits ambassadorial role with Nike

Coe has an ambassadorial role with Nike worth £100,000 (S$212,000) a year.

The head of athletics’ governing body had been accused of having a conflict of interest and has this afternoon relinquished the post with immediate effect.

He also said that the decision had not been prompted by a BBC report published earlier this week which focused on an “internal Nike email” and the decision to award the 2021 IAAF World Championships to Eugene.

“I was in a conversation with a Nike official in discharging my ambassadorial role, discussing a range of issues”, he said.

“I don’t feel it was a conflict of interests, but it had undoubtedly become a distraction”, he announced at a news conference.

Coe, who said his decision was not a reaction to those claims, added: “The current noise level around this role is not good for the IAAF and for Nike”.

The IAAF council voted on November 13 to suspend Russia’s federation – ARAF – after a “deeply rooted culture of cheating” was identified by a World Anti-Doping Agency commission. The city in OR, which lost out to Doha in bidding for the 2019 event, is closely associated with sports firm Nike, for whom Coe, a two-time Olympic 1,500 metre champion, acts as ambassador.

His predecessor, Lamine Diack, is now under investigation by French authorities for allegedly accepting bribes to cover up Russian doping results, according to French police.

The US city was awarded the 2021 World Championships in April without a bidding process, despite interest from the Swedish city of Gothenburg.

The IAAF was put on the back foot initially by media claims that it had covered up or ignored swathes of suspicious blood tests, claims that Coe initially and ill-advisedly dismissed as a “declaration of war on our sport”.

“I’m grateful for that advice but it is clear that perception and reality have become horribly mangled”, said Coe, who is also a longstanding Conservative member of Britain’s upper house of parliament, the House of Lords. “It is for the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) to decide the right and proper moment for the Russian federation and their clean athletes to get back into competition”.

A letter to the IAAF from ARAF general secretary Mikhail Butov states: “We recognise suspension without a hearing”.

“The athletes want someone at the top to be paid to deliver professional services for the sport”, said former Namibian sprinter Frank Fredericks, now head of the IAAF athletes commission.