Former IAAF Media Chief Banned

(ATR) The dirty laundry of the IAAF is hung out for the world to see in a 60-page report from the federation Ethics Board.

Published Jan. 31, the document details the sins of omission of the ex-IAAF media chief regarding a 30,000 Euros payment he secretly received in 2013 by then-IAAF President Lamine Diack.

Davies, who has spent most of his professional career at the federation based in Monaco, suspended himself from the staff when he first came under ethics scrutiny more than a year ago.

Davies’ wife, Anne Boulter-Davies, and Pierre-Yves Garnier, staff members in the IAAF anti-doping department, were also investigated by the ethics panel and covered in the ruling delivered Monday evening in Europe.

Did He or Didn't He

The crux of the case against Nick Davies was getting caught in a lie over whether he received the cash. In his initial responses to the ethics commission investigator, Davies denied receiving the money, allegedly handed over by one of the Diacks.

"I want to make it abundantly clear that neither Lamine Diack or Papa Massata Diack ever gave me money (or arranged for a third party to give me money) to "keep quiet and so they are not opposed" or for any other reason," Davies told the ethics investigator in a letter early last year as the inquiry started.

The Diacks, father and son, are the main event in this circus of scandal that is still underway for the federation. The elder Diack is under investigation by French police along with his son for extorting cash from Russian athletes and officials to keep positive doping tests from going public. The now-disgraced ex-IAAF president cannot leave France as he is expected to be formally charged.

Both are banned for life from the IAAF and athletics.

Papa Masa Diack is holed-up in the family home in Senegal, unable to leave the country as his name is on an Interpol list to be detained if he travels to another country. He is portrayed in the IAAF report as a middleman in the corrupt dealings between his father and Russia.

Emails from the younger Diack and Davies leaked to the media in 2015 led the ethics proceeding against Davies. In one email Diack lists the payouts he made to several individuals in the IAAF, including 30,000 euros to Davies.

The ethics board investigator notes that the more he learned about this case the more convinced be became that Davies was not truthful. He requested and received copies of bank statements for Davies and his wife. The ledgers confirmed cash deposits of the amounts reported to have been paid to Davies.

Recanted Statements

A day later, June 4, 2016, Davies admitted the deception in a written statement to the ethics investigator. The confession is part of the report. Davies says panic, not corruption, led to the lie.

"I would like to apologise because I have not been truthful with you in reply to a key question in your investigation. I also sincerely regret misleading the Ethics Board, yourself and my solicitor… and I now want to set the record straight."

"I … wish to admit that my false statement to you is a breach of the ethics Code. I intentionally misled an IAAF Ethics Board Investigator and while in due course I would wish to advance an explanation/mitigationI can already emphasise that I did so in panic at being drawn into matters of such seriousness, when I had not been a party to the cover up of the doping tests or any other intentional wrong doing."

Jane Boulter-Davies says she lied to the investigator to back up her husband’s initial untruths. But when he admitted lying, she too recanted earlier denials that they had received money from the Diacks. Boulter-Davies, who raised alarms about Russian athletes with positive drug tests appearing on start lists for the 2013 IAAF Athletics World Championships in Moscow, insists that she was not involved in doping subterfuge.

"At no stage was I asked by any person to modify the anti-doping procedures for which I was responsible, nor did I alter in any way my manner of working. Indeed, I find even the insinuation deeply hurtful since it goes against everything that I have worked hard and stood for over the past 22 plus years," she is quoted in the IAAF report.

The third defendant in the IAAF report is Pierre-Yves Garnier, a member of the IAAF anti-doping department. The 2013Diack email named him as receiving 10,000 euros. He said the elder Diack wanted him to use the cash to organize a 2014 pilgrimage to the sports club in the Jura region of France where Diack trained as a youth some 60 years earlier.

Garnier said he had grown suspicious of the intent of the cash when he discovered that the costs of the event were financed locally and the money from Diack was never needed. Garnier says he paid himself with some of the money for his work on the Jura project and gave the bulk of it to a Jura charity.

As with Boulter-Davies, Garnier says his work in anti-doping was not influenced by the payment.

In all three cases, the IAAF inquiry accepts the explanations, based on evidence, that neither of the Davies nor Garnier participated in any of the drug test manipulation allegedly carried out in Russian track and field.

"Mr Davies has expressed deep remorse for his actions and has submitted that his actions were out of character," notes the report as one of four mitigating circumstances considered when punishing Davies. Statements of support from colleagues and journalists helped.

In the end, the IAAF Ethics Board banned Davies for life from the IAAF. However, he is permitted to work with any other sports organizations in athletics, including IAAF sanctioned events.

"…it is no part of our decision that Mr Davies acted in any way corruptly," notes the report, a similar finding for the other two cases.

Boulter-Davies and Garnier were handed six-month suspensions for their ethics breaches. Already suspended since last June, their penalties have now been served and both are back on the IAAF payroll.

The report is a glimpse into the murky world of a powerful international federation that appears to have become overcome with corruption in the final years of the Diack reign.

Cash flowed freely at the IAAF under Diack. The report includes a nugget that the IAAF took $500,000 in cash to the 2015 world champs in Beijing.

"Since the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, extremely serious corruption at the heart of the sport has come to light. Those revelations have come as a shock to the majority of the IAAF’s staff as well as to the wider public and it is important that we do not judge actions at the time through the lens of hindsight," says the report.

Written by Ed Hula.