Yahoo – AFP,
Luke Phillips, 26 Nov 2015
A photo taken on August 30, 2015 shows IAAF president Sebastian Coe at the 2015 IAAF World Championships at the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium in Beijing (AFP Photo/ Greg Baker) |
Monaco
(AFP) - IAAF president Sebastian Coe bowed to intense pressure and announced
Thursday that he had stepped down from his paid role as an ambassador for Nike
to focus more on cleaning up world track and field's beleaguered governing
body.
"It is
clear that perception and reality have become horribly mangled," said Coe
after an IAAF Council meeting.
"I've
stepped down from my ambassadorial role with Nike, which dates back 38 years.
"The
current noise level around this ambassadorial role is not good for the IAAF and
it is not good for Nike, and frankly it is a distraction to the 18-hour days I
and our teams are working to steady the ship."
Coe also
announced he would step down from his role as chairman of the British Olympic
Committee after the Rio Olympics and said a multinational sports marketing
company he heads up, CSM, would "not tender for nor directly work for the
IAAF or any city in relation to their tender to the IAAF while I am president
of the IAAF".
Coe, unpaid
as head of track and field's world governing body, received around £100,000
(142,000 euros) a year for his global ambassadorial role for Oregon-based Nike.
The Briton,
a two-time Olympic gold 1500m medallist, is accused of lobbying disgraced
predecessor Lamine Diack to hand Eugene the 2021 world championships.
Bjorn
Eriksson, who led a rival bid by Gothenburg for the 2021 championships, said
Coe telephoned him on Wednesday to say it had been wrong to give the event to
Eugene without a formal bidding process, The Times reported.
Coe
insisted, however, that he had not been responsible for the decision that was
made in April.
"I
don't believe it was a conflict of interest," Coe stressed.
The
decision to step down from Nike "was purely on the need to focus on
challenges ahead with my colleagues and particularly the executive teams here
at (IAAF) headquarters", he said.
"The
issues that I've been dealing with in the last few weeks, the reform of the
organisation, the challenges faced by the organisation across two or three
fronts, needs an unflinching focus and the 'noises off' are frankly a distraction
and I can see that.
"The
decision I chose to take in the last few weeks was one that I think reflected
my absolute intention to focus as long and as hard as I can on steadying the
ship that has been rocking rather badly recently."
Coe added,
however, that he had sought advice from the IAAF Ethics Commission, who said
the Briton could have continued in his Nike role as long as he
"continually and consistently declared all my interests" and did not
participate in any decisions involving the company when it came to working with
the IAAF.
Eriksson
also said Coe had indicated that the Eugene award was being investigated by
French police as part of a corruption inquiry into the IAAF leadership of
Diack, who stood down in August.
Diack is
also under investigation over allegations that he took bribes from Russian
officials to cover up positive drug tests by athletes.
"If I
understand Sebastian Coe correctly, he said, 'I agree that the procedure wasn't
correct', but he claims he wasn't involved in this, others are," Eriksson
said.
Coe had
been a strong supporter of Eugene's bid for the 2021 championships and was part
of the IAAF council that voted this year to abandon the normal bidding process.
Nike, which
was founded in Eugene, was also a powerful backer of the bid.
And the BBC
said Tuesday it had seen an email in which a Nike executive said Coe had
assured him he would "reach out" to Diack on behalf of Eugene.
Coe
insisted that action would be taken should there be anything shown to be out of
order with bids not only for Eugene but also the world championships in Doha in
2017.
"In
our own internal reviews, the criminal investigations that are currently
ongoing... or any of the recommendations or conclusions from the independent
commission report to WADA, if any of those show or conclude impropriety, then
action will be taken," Coe warned.
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