Former IAAF president faces corruption & money-laundering charges

French TV news channel iTELE reported that the investigation was focused on suspicions that payments were made in return for not revealing widespread doping of Russian athletes, although the prosecutor’s office did not confirm that.

The latest developments follow a raid on the Monaco offices of track and field’s governing body by police on Tuesday.

In this photo taken Thursday November 5, 2015, France’s national…

The former president of the IAAF, Lamine Diack was accused by French authorities on Wednesday of accepting large sums of money to cover up positive doping tests.

The statement added that “police visited the IAAF headquarters offices yesterday to carry out interviews and to access documentation”. It has filed disciplinary charges against him, Dolle, former Russian athletics federation head Valentin Balakhnichev and Alexei Melnikov, former head coach for Russia’s long-distance runners and walkers. There is a large-scale corruption investigation at Federation Internationale de Football Association while athletics is fighting a desperate public relations rearguard battle in the face of continual doping issues.

Several IAAF officials are implicated in covering up Russian doping including Diack’s son, IAAF marketing consultant Pape Massata Diack.

The Senegalese retired from his postiton as the president of the IAAF which lasted for 16 years in August and handed over to Sebastian Coe. All three agreed to stand down from their positions pending an investigation. The director of the the IAAF’s anti-doping department, Gabriel Dolle, is also being investigated. The WADA report into the scandal is to be published on Monday.

After the IAAF changed its rules to allow the ethics committee to break its silence, it confirmed that an investigation by the recently retired Lord Justice Sir Anthony Hooper, which is understood to have begun in spring 2014 before the German claims were broadcast, had been completed.

The IAAF’s former anti-doping chief has been placed under criminal investigation, suspected of taking about 200,000 euros ($220,000) in bribes in an alleged coverup of positive Russian doping tests.

Asked how much Diack senior is believed to have pocketed, she replied: “From what we’ve verified, it is more than 1 million euros and this money seemingly transmitted through the Russian athletics federation”. The old management isn’t working there anymore. “It is therefore following these ongoing inquiries very closely and awaits the full facts coming to light”. “We express full confidence in the new leadership of the IAAF which has repeatedly declared that it is in full alignment with the call for good governance in sport and the protection of the clean athletes”.