Sebastian Coe has again defended the controversial selection of Eugene as the host of the 2021 world athletics championships after French prosecutors confirmed they were looking into the issue.
The financial prosecutor’s office in Paris is investigating whether corruption, money laundering or other crimes may have been committed in the snap decision to hand the championships to the US city without a bidding process.
If it determines an offence may have been committed it will look into whether any prosecution falls under French jurisdiction. The IAAF, mired in doping and corruption scandals, has its headquarters in Monaco.
Lord Coe, the IAAF president, has previously said that if any wrongdoing is uncovered in the awarding of the London 2017, Doha 2019 or Eugene 2021 world championships – either by the French criminal investigation or its own internal probe – then he will reconsider them.
The French prosecutor’s office told CNN an email that emerged last month between a Nike executive and the head of the Eugene bid, in which they discussed Coe’s stance on the bid, was the starting point for their inquiries.
Coe was forced last month to relinquish his ties with Nike after claiming the “noise” surrounding claims of a possible conflict of interest were impacting on his efforts to deal with the sport’s doping and corruption issues. Nike was founded in Eugene and is now based 100 miles away in Portland.
French prosecutors are essentially looking into all aspects of Lamine Diack’s tenure as IAAF president after arresting the Senegalese and seizing his passport last month over allegations he accepted 1m euros in bribes to cover up positive drug tests. They also arrested the former head of the IAAF anti-doping unit, Gabriel Dolle, and Habib Cisse, the former legal advisor to Diack and the IAAF. French prosecutors have said Papa Massata Diack, Lamine’s son and a former IAAF marketing consultant, will be arrested if he enters the country.
The inquiry into the award of the 2021 world championships to Eugene, made at short notice by Diack before he was succeeded by Coe in August without the formal bidding process that was due to take place in 2016, is at an earlier stage than the criminal investigation into corruption.
In France, preliminary probes that uncover wrongdoing can lead to a more formal criminal investigation or prosecutors can later close them down if they find no evidence.
“We have suspicions, otherwise we wouldn’t open an investigation,” a prosecutor told Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We are within our rights to have a look. But there may be normal reasons that will lift the suspicions.”
Coe told the BBC other cities had previously been chosen without an open bidding process and the IAAF saw it as an opportunity to open up the US market.
The 2007 world championships in Osaka is believed to be the only other recent edition to have been awarded without a bidding process.
Coe has said there was no conflict between his decision to back Diack’s plan to hand the championships to Eugene and his former consultancy role with Nike, which was worth £100,000 a year.
The Nike executive Craig Masback said in the email that Coe had made his support clear. The former London 2012 chairman has insisted he did not lobby anyone in support of the bid.
Bjorn Eriksson, the former Interpol president who headed Gothenburg’s bid for the 2021 championships, welcomed the French decision.
“I don’t think we’ve been given an explanation at all. The question I am putting forward time after time is why wasn’t the process transparent and why were we not given a chance?” he told CNN.
“We would accept to lose if we are evaluated in second rather than first but we are a bit insulted by the fact they didn’t listen to us and I’ve found no acceptable reason for that behaviour. That doesn’t mean its criminal, it’s just that it is at least unethical.”
Coe, who has promised an independent anti-doping unit, also promised to double the IAAF’s budget to ensure the top 20 international athletes in each discipline are tested rather than the top 10, as at present.
In answer to questions over whether, as a vice president for eight years, he should have known more Coe admitted the “traditional model for sport” was not an acceptable one.
“We have got to return trust to the governing body and we’ve got to return trust on the track,” said Coe. “If you’re saying that too much power sat in the hands of too few people and the walls were too high, then you’re right.
“I’m not under any illusion here, I’m president of an international federation which is under serious investigation.”
He also insisted Russia, banned in the wake of revelations of state-sponsored doping, would not be welcomed back to international competition unless they met strict criteria, even if that meant them missing the Rio Olympics next year.
Meanwhile, the IOC also reiterated its proposals for taking drug-testing out of the hands of sports organisations to make the system more independent and credible. The IOC has proposed the World Anti-Doping Agency takes over testing on a global level and creates an intelligence-gathering unit to help catch cheats.
