We recorded our podcast right after this sentence came down and then forgot to discuss it.
I guess most of us assumed he would be found guilty which is sort of sad. Head of our sport was covering up things central to its integrity .
Please correct the thread title wejo.
party like its 1859 wrote:
Please correct the thread title wejo.
Fixed
Some interesting tidbits:
The corruption started in 2011 with Russia:
"According to French prosecutors, the "full protection" scheme was first suggested by Lamine Diack at a meeting with the then Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, in November 2011."
The IAAF was considered the "victim" of wrongful media coverage:
"The Paris criminal court also decided to award World Athletics €16m for embezzled funds and for reputational damage suffered as a direct consequence of these crimes and the resulting media coverage."
Hang on,
Did anyone actually go to jail? It appears not.
Embezzling / bribing millions and fines of 100 000s???
Where did the 16m 'awarded' come form - lets hope from the people 'convicted'.
So as far as i am concerned, if noone went to jail, and if the convicted arent paying all the money back and more and being cosigned to bancruptcy, then nothing happened.
Just as corrupt as ever; crime and unsportsmanship behaviour pay (exceedingly well) in sport
Lamine Diack is sentenced to two years in jail. Sounds lenient, but he is 87 years old.
His son, who refused to leave Senegal to face his accusers in Paris court was convicted, but Senegal is apparently not supporting the extradition of Papa Massata Diack, who allegedly skimmed millions from broadcast revenue and extorted would-be hosts for money to award world championships. For example, it is alleged that he asked for and received approximately 500,000 USD to award Doha the 2019 World Athletics Championships. They had bid on the 2017 edition but was not awarded.
There were four others convicted in corruption-related charges.
I am not sure how Lamine was extradited successfully and Papa Massata wasn't, but he did and will probably enjoy the millions, retired.....
'extorted' lol... except the same communist countries get all the major events, fifa, uefa, olympics, iaaf, everything. if they even have to pay anyone they're paying these symbollic to them amounts either way. whether it's diack or shmoe or whoever 'in charge' doesn't matter
Sean Ingle has a great followup story on Diack in the Telegraph this morning. The question I have is how much were the total bribes. I know the article talks about €3.2m for total protection which didn't end up being total protection as the Russians were still eventually popped. Can you imagine paying that much and still getting popped? Anyway, check out this paragraph.
Ingle wrote:
In sentencing Diack Jr, the judge said $15m had been funnelled to his companies while his father was in charge at the IAAF. The judge added that the Diacks had worked together in diverting funds, telling Diack Sr that there was “an understanding between you and your son”.
Now that doesnt' mean it was $15 million in illegal bribes. The son was bringing in some sponsorship I believe. Does anyone know how much fo that 15 was viewed as illegitimate?
Maybe the Diacks just picked the wrong employer. Maybe they should have just worked for USATF where those that negotiated the no-bid Nike deal were paid $23 million.
Let's rank the people in terms of highest average compensation per year (legal or illegal).
The Diacks
The guys who negotiated the Nike deal
Max Siegel
Here is the article.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/sep/16/how-lamine-diacks-16-year-reign-in-charge-of-iaaf-led-to-a-jail-termthe 'popping' left most of their best athletes competing
The way that our sport is governed and organized is the reason why it will never grow beyond what it is.
The world's governing body is full of corruption. You can buy your way out of doping positives. You can pay your way to get big meets/championships. Everything is for sale and it seems that the administrators are the only ones who will ever see any financial success as a result.
The IAAF mandates you can basically only wear one logo on your body. (yeah, I know, the smaller logo for some meets...). Because of that rule, competitors are overly reliant on their shoe endorsement contract, which focuses on your appearing in one of three options for competition: Olympics. World Champs. Specifically named and Privately organized events. The Olympics won't pay you for running. And you can't market yourself in during the event. Ever. The WCs require you to wear a national uniform - so unless you're Nike you're not going to get great exposure for your footwear company. And then privately organized events that largely rely upon one of the footwear brands for the money. And those privately organized meets are not attended by "all of the best" in an event - but normally have top runners for that footwear company. So often an event features 3-4 stellar runners tops.
So in other words - the most competitive events are the ones the athletes can't make a ton of money at just for appearing, can't market themselves while appearing. And the ones athletes can market themselves at are half-full of great fields.
For this sport to change - it has to start at the top. Replace World Athletics' rules with one that is more fair for athletes. Let them have the authority to wear whatever they want on their singlets. This will at the very least allow other companies to enter into the endorsement part of this sport. Then athletes will make more money and as a result of that, the sport will also attract more participants in the future (top marathon prizes are about 150K .... Mahomes just signed a contract for 50m/year). And with more participants, the sport can finally grow into something bigger/better.
Funny, I thought I was logged in as Athletics Illustrated and a message said that the post was unsuccessful, so posted as Wet Coast and it was successful as Athletics Illustrated. Now am posting as Wet Coast, see what goes.
I'd prefer Athletics Illustrated if that can be fixed.
Anyway, a marketing person should make 70 - 150,000 depending on being C-level, which country, size of organization etc.
It is alleged that he took bribes from World Champ bids, like Doha for roughly half a mill.
It is alleged that he skimmed television broadcast revenue.
Well, we can assume it is unlikely that it stopped there.
I would suggest that the vast majority of revenue that jr. was responsible for was skimming, extorting or corrupt in some other way.
Jr played the race card more than once. However, three of the five convicted are white. So, that was cheap and desperate. Again I believe that both were extradited and somehow Jr. let his father take the punishment, as Senegal is not supporting the charges (from what I understand).
...and Please and thanks for the handle fixing if possible....
And the last bit.....THEREFORE, Jr. didn't have to go.
Does anyone know how that turned out to be???
Diack’s net effect on t&f was negative. Ditto his son.
At least we got one of them.
Never forget: Diack = Bolt
In terms of ill-gotten gains, Diack, etc pale in comparison to Dolt.
What a travesty, but it went way beyond Diack—others in IAAF and its orbit, others in national governing bodies, coaches, individual athletes, and the IOC.
It’s an almost complete sh!tshow as far as the very top athletes and competitions are concerned, and it is ALL about money.
Anyone who thinks this started in 2011 is a fool.
There has been corruption at all levels in Doping Control since it started.
There had to be existing corruption pathways that were consolidated by the 2011 meeting.
Labs knew how to take a cut, urine collectors knew, coaches knew that results and training plans were based on avoiding both tests and test results.
I will go as far as to say that the Press knew what was going on both in “ clean” countries as well as dirty ones.
My guess it that Russia had to pay as they had worked out it was the only way to get a level playing field.
Come back Charlie Francis; all is forgiven as you told us exactly what it all was about.
Surprised Kenya was not mentioned must have been some bungs there.
Sprintgeezer wrote:
Diack’s net effect on t&f was negative. Ditto his son.
At least we got one of them.
Never forget: Diack = Bolt
In terms of ill-gotten gains, Diack, etc pale in comparison to Dolt.
What a travesty, but it went way beyond Diack—others in IAAF and its orbit, others in national governing bodies, coaches, individual athletes, and the IOC.
It’s an almost complete sh!tshow as far as the very top athletes and competitions are concerned, and it is ALL about money.
Interesting what was the link there?
ukathleticscoach wrote:
Interesting what was the link there?
that poster is insane
rekrunner wrote:
The corruption started in 2011 with Russia:
"According to French prosecutors, the "full protection" scheme was first suggested by Lamine Diack at a meeting with the then Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, in November 2011."
Unlikely that they weren't corrupt before 2011, when the "full protection" started. For example, they are also being investigated for bribes for Rio, which got the Olympics in 2009.
Sprintgeezer,
What connection between Diack and Bolt are you thinking?
There is a conspiracy theory that goes like this:
Bolt was the big draw to athletics while he was around 9.58, winning golds etc. It is alleged that he tested positive or had an ABP anomaly or someone ratted — something allegedly happened. So in this theory/rumour Diack says to Bolt, "because we need you to be the beacon for athletics, as you are, you're punishment is to pay "X" dollars for your protection and in addition to that, you are going to false start and get DQ'd at Worlds. The theory goes on that his behavior after the trackside official DQ'd him was odd/fake disappointment, so, therefore, is further evidence that the theory is possible.
So, is that what you are referring to?
rule leader,
I don't know if anyone is suggesting it started in 2011, but certainly, there is evidence against the Diaks and others, so, they were charged as they should have been. Tomfoolery likely started decades before.