The news about athletes not being paid came out fairly early right? Are we sure they were calling Merber much earlier than 2 days in advance before the news of them not being paid yet came out?
When LA was cancelled, I remember there was some sort of call with all athletes to discuss. Payments must have been discussed right? Are we sure it was on Merber to communicate the status of payments given the other conference calls with athletes that seemed to have been happening? My point is, I'm not sure that Merber had any more insider knowledge than someone like Fisher or Kerr had at any time, or was that Merber was the one being called.
That said - the reason GST failed was a failure to secure the initial investing cash and future TV contracts. He must take some blame right? Why weren't there more Jamaicans at the GST Jamaica meet? Why were so many races sort of boring? Why were hurdlers making up 1/3 of the athletes (if you aren't having field events to the lack of appeal, the answer is to have a ton of hurdlers and them running half their races without hurdles)? You'd think he would have a high level of influence on any of these decisions - a lot of which made a lot of fans question the whole thing. Living halfway between NY and Philly, I'd be the first person buying tickets to Milrose, but would have no interest in making a trip for ONE day at GST Philly, never mind 2 or 3. And from a tv perspective, even as a huge track fan I'm not spending 9 hours of a weekend watching the racing product they put out - and that would be on the director of racing.
In all, I don't think Merber is a scammer and I dont think should be criticized as one. I do think he was unsuccessful in his role - but it was definitely a difficult role and probably not one he was suited for. I'm not sure why they wouldn't have hired a meet director with proven success.