It is still just about possible that Sebastian Coe was the only clean man in the IAAF stable, a former track star whose running shorts remained a pristine white as dirt splashed all around him. At least, that is the image suggested by investigator Dick Pound, who yesterday released the second damning Independent Commission report into corruption in athletics' governing body.
Lord Coe, who is the new president of the IAAF, is the “best person” to take the institution forward, said Mr Pound, and “would have done something” about the corruption had he known about it. This is a generous interpretation, and one contradicted by the key line from Mr Pound's own report, which was this: “The IAAF council could not have been unaware of doping and the non-enforcement of applicable anti-doping rules.” Lord Coe, of course, was on that council.
Much of Mr Pound's 89-page report focuses on the IAAF's President up until last year, Lamine Diack. Mr Diack built up a network within the IAAF to help him extort bribes from athletes and nations caught cheating. Last November, he was charged with money laundering by French authorities. Yet as the Pound report drives home, corruption at the IAAF cannot be “dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade”, or even some secretive splinter cell. It was “embedded in the organisation”.
For a man who, in his prime as a middle-distance runner, was accustomed to arriving at conclusions before a crowd, Lord Coe has been slow on the uptake. He initially rejected reports of doping as a “war” against his organisation.
On the day of his election he said it was “just inaccurate” to suggest the IAAF was complicit in doping. Two days ago he maintained that there had been “no cover-up”, a conclusion directly contradicted yesterday by Mr Pound, who simply said “the organisation is in denial”.
That Lord Coe is guilty of poor judgement there can be no doubt. His right-hand man within the IAAF, Nick Davies, stepped down last month after he was revealed to have conspired with one of Mr Diack's sons over a Russian doping announcement.
In short, Lord Coe must have been aware of doping and conspiracy within the IAAF, but did not seek to find out more; he trusted colleagues who have since been exposed as corrupt; he objected to reporters asking questions; he lavished praise on Mr Diack in a valedictory speech. It amounts, in the kindest of eyes, to the record of an insider content to look the other way rather than risk his accession to a plum job. A masterful performance as organiser of the London 2012 Olympics cannot excuse that.
Clearly Mr Pound respects Lord Coe.
In yesterday's press conference he attempted several times to deflect blame from the former Conservative MP. Mr Pound may be trying to steady the ship, to give the IAAF some breathing space to rebuild, by protecting the new president. That may look appropriate for someone tied to the world of athletics. To outsiders, it is far from sufficient.
Rebuilding the IAAF from the bottom up may be a step too far, in both practical and financial terms. But the very least that is needed to convince a sceptical public that the sport is serious about cleaning up is a change of guard at the top. Even if Lord Coe is as clean as Mr Pound believes, he is startlingly naive, or bafflingly incurious. That is the exact opposite of what any reformer should be. He must go.– The Independent