Friday January 08, 2016
Kaieteur News
Page 37
Life bans for three athletics figures over alleged doping cover-up The son of ex-world athletics chief Lamine Diack is one of three senior figures given life bans from the sport. Former IAAF consultant Papa Massata Diack and Russian officials Valentin Balakhnichev and Alexei Melnikov were last month charged with multiple breaches of anti-doping rules relating to Russian athlete Liliya Shobukhova. Ex-IAAF anti-doping director Gabriel Dolle has been banned for five years. IAAF president Lord Coe said the bans “could not send a stronger message”. Diack and Balakhnichev, a former presi-
dent of the Russian athletics federation and IAAF treasurer, face fines of £17,000 while Russian coach Melnikov could be fined £10,000. The independent IAAF ethics commission panel’s 170-page report claims Diack, Balakhnichev and Melnikov conspired to “blackmail” Shobukhova to cover up her doping violations by her paying them “bribes” of about £435,000. Last month, Diack told the BBC he “totally rejects” the blackmail allegations, saying: “There was no extortion of funds from any athlete.”
The panel said: “The head of a national federation, the senior coach of a major national team and a marketing consultant for the IAAF conspired together (and, it may yet be proven with others too) to conceal for more than three years’ anti-doping violations by an athlete at what appeared to be the highest pinnacle of her sport. ”They acted dishonestly and corruptly and did unprecedented damage to the sport of track and field which, by their actions, they have brought into serious disrepute.” Shobukhova’s 38month ban from track and field
CFU Club Championship groups, schedule unveiled KINGSTON, Jamaica – A meeting between Montego Bay United (Jamaica) and holder Central FC (Trinidad & Tobago) will highlight preliminary-round play in the 2016 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Championship after the groups and schedule were announced. The sides participated in the 2015/16 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League, but one or both of them will be eliminated from
potential involvement in the 2016/17 edition, following their Group 3 encounter on February 28. The CFU revealed that 14 clubs from eight member associations entered the competition that will open with a preliminary round consisting of two four-team groups and two three-team groups. The four group winners will advance to the final round, which will be contested at a single location
April 29 – May 1, utilizing a semifinal, third-place match and final format. The two finalists and third-place match winner will earn berths to the 2016/17 SCCL. DirecTV W Connection (Trinidad & Tobago) is the only other team in the field to have qualified for the SCCL, participating on four previous occasions (2009/10, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2015/16). In the 2015 final, Central FC topped W Connection, 21, for its first international title.
Papa Diack was reduced by seven months after she turned whistleblower for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Russia have been banned from international athletics competition after a report by WADA’s independent commission alleged the country was guilty of “state-sponsored doping”. A n a l y s i s There is an old rule of journalism that you should always get the name of the dog in any story about a domestic tragedy or natural disaster - the idea being it is the pet with a cute name that really
Valentin Balakhnichev grabs your audience. There should be an amendment to that rule for this golden age of sporting scandal: get the name of the dodgy bank account. In the case of the scam to suppress positive drug tests by Russian athletes in return for cash, it is called ‘Black Tidings’. How apt for a grim tale that involves drugs, mysterious meetings, blackmail, a cosmopolitan cast of pantomime villains and the Olympics. The weirdest thing about reading the 170-page into how the IAAF president’s son and two leading Russian
officials colluded to extract huge sums of money from a drugs cheat - while Dolle, the IAAF’s anti-doping boss, looked at his finger nails and whistled - is you almost feel sorry for the cheat. Almost. The most alarming thing for athletics is this report - into one scam, involving one athlete - will be the mildest indictment of the moral malaise at the sport’s heart in the coming weeks and months. There is far worse to come, which the report hints at with references to other athletes, other officials and other countries. Black tidings indeed. (BBCSport)
Platini withdraws candidacy for FIFA presidency Banned European soccer boss president Michel Platini has withdrawn his candidacy from the race for the presidency of soccer’s scandalplagued governing body FIFA, he told French sports daily L’Equipe yesterday. Platini, the head of European soccer body UEFA, was handed an eight-year ban from the game by along with outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter by the federation’s independent Ethics Committee on Dec. 21. The former French international has insisted he has done nothing wrong and was still hoping to win an appeal in time to have been allowed back in time for the election on Feb. 26., but said he had changed his mind. ”I withdraw my candidacy. I can no longer (go through with it). I have neither the time, nor the means to go and see the voters, to meet people, and to fight with others,” he said in an interview which L’Equipe published on its website. ”By withdrawing, I chose to fully focus on my defence on a case where there’s no
Michel Platini talk of corruption, falsification anymore, in which there’s nothing left,” added Platini, who was widely seen as the favourite until he was banned. ”It’s a matter of schedule, but it’s not just that. How do you win an election when you’re prevented from campaigning?” Blatter and Platini were both banned over a payment of 2 million Swiss francs
($2 million) made to the Frenchman by FIFA with Blatter’s approval in 2011 for work done a decade earlier. The committee said the payment, made at a time when Blatter was seeking re-election, lacked transparency and presented conflicts of interest, though both men denied wrongdoing. (Reuters)