Coe cleared after enquiry into Qatari bribes rumours

LONDON: The IAAF’s Ethics Board has backed Sebastian Coe after the president of athletics’ governing body denied discussing rumours that Qatari officials had been paying bribes in a bid to secure hosting rights for the 2017 world championships.

The Board said on Monday it had found no evidence of bribery attempts or that International Association of Athletics Federations President (IAAF) Coe had been aware or or disuccsed them.

It would not be opening a formal invesitgation into the process, which ended with London being selected as host city, he said.

Ed Warner, Chairman of UK Athletics, told BBC Radio in January that the night before the IAAF Council’s vote on the awarding of the 2017 championships in November 2011, he (as the head of the successful London bid team) was informed by a “senior person within the IAAF” of rumours that IAAF Council members were being called to receive “brown envelopes” containing cash from the Qatari delegation.

Warner repeated the claim in a British Parliamentary hearing and later told the Ethics Board that the senior person was Coe, who at the time was head of the 2012 Olympics and IAAF vice-president.