LORD COE stands accused of winning power with the help of the man at the centre of Russia’s corruption and doping probe.
BBC’s Panorama programme claim text messages suggest Papa Massata Diack helped secure votes for Coe when he was elected IAAF president in August 2015 — despite being implicated in one of the biggest scandals in the history of sport.
The programme also suggests Coe may have misled the UK parliament.
The new allegations heap more pressure on Coe as he and the other members of the IAAF Council meet today to decide whether to lift the ban on Russian track and field athletes in time for the Rio Olympics this summer.
Massata Diack, son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack, remains wanted by Interpol after the French authorities launched a criminal probe into claims of corruption at the very top of the sport.
Within weeks of Coe’s victory, the French authorities arrested Diack Snr and are hunting his son as part of an investigation into an alleged conspiracy to conceal doping by Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova and to blackmail her.
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The texts revealed by Panorama appear to paint a picture of Coe seeking and accepting help and advice from Massata Diack in the build-up to the presidential election.
In one message, the Senegalese said: “And leave the doping platform!! It is a bad mantra for your campaigning.”
In another, Massata Diack wrote: “Support of Africa confirmed (24/30)! Good luck.”
The Panorama programme, screened last night, also alleges Coe misled a parliamentary select committee about when he first became aware of the doping and corruption allegations.
Coe, who had been an IAAF vice-president since 2007, told the Culture, Media and Sport Committee last year: “I was certainly not aware of the specific allegations that had been made around the corruption of anti-doping processes in Russia.”
Coe said his first knowledge of any allegations against Massata Diack came from the German TV programme which had exposed the scandal in December 2014.
But the BBC says it has evidence that Coe was sent an email four months earlier which spelled out the allegations as well as Massata Diack’s alleged involvement.
Coe, who denies any wrongdoing, says he forwarded the email to the IAAF Ethics Committee to investigate without reading the attachments, and denies seeking Diack’s support.
However, Coe could find himself summoned to Parliament to explain himself and will surely come under even greater pressure to stand down from his post as athletics supremo.
The new allegations are the last thing Coe needed ahead of today’s IAAF Council meeting in Vienna.
A report released by the World Anti-Doping Agency earlier this week suggests Russian sport still has huge problems with doping and dodging of drug tests.
Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko has threatened to take legal action if the ban on his country’s athletics federation is not lifted.
But Coe’s remaining credibility as the sport’s leader will surely disappear if Russians are allowed to compete in track and field events in Rio.
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