There is new evidence that indicates Lord Coe did breach the IAAF’s code of ethics on his way to becoming the president of world athletics.
A document seen by Sportsmail appears to back earlier claims that the most powerful man in athletics did seek help from at least one IAAF employee during his election campaign — a clear contravention of the rules.
Coe won a close-run fight for the presidency, beating legendary Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergey Bubka by 115-92 last August.
The document is an email sent in June 2015 by a senior member of Coe’s bid team which asks Nick Davies, deputy general secretary of the IAAF, for his assistance.
The email reads: ‘Nick, Seb also asks that you have a final sense check on the bullets to see if there is anything there that might “startle the horses” in the office or with PD re the commercial bullet.’
The fact that ‘Seb’, that is Lord Coe, appears to be asking for Davies’s assistance just two months before the election is against the IAAF’s code of ethics.
Earlier this week an official IAAF statement to this newspaper claimed Coe did not break the rules, saying: ‘Lord Coe did not ask Nick Davies to support his election campaign. Nick Davies chose to support it of his own volition.’
This followed the emergence of emails revealed by Sportsmail on Tuesday in which Davies corresponded with Coe’s bid team using a codename ‘Manolo Yanes’ and a private email address, [email protected].
Last night, after being made aware of this latest document, the IAAF again denied there had been a breach of the code. ‘As previously stated, Lord Coe did not ask Nick Davies to support his election campaign,’ their statement said. ‘Nick Davies chose to support it of his own volition, because he thought Lord Coe’s election was in the best interests of the IAAF.’
The IAAF code of ethics states that ‘candidates shall not request support or service from IAAF staff, consultants, agents or advisers in connection with their candidacies’.
Sportsmail asked the IAAF’s independent ethics commission to comment but there has been no response to three emails sent to their central London office this week.
The email which asks for ‘a final sense check’ was sent two months before Coe was elected president in August 2015 by Jan Paterson, the director of Olympic relations at the British Olympic Association and a key member of Coe’s campaign team.
Paterson addresses ‘Nick’ at the start of the email but it is sent to ‘Manolo Yanes’ among others.
This email appears to be an attempt to fine-tune Coe’s election manifesto. The ‘office’ to which Paterson refers is believed to be the office of then president Lamine Diack, who like his son Papa Massata Diack, is now the subject of a criminal investigation in France.
Both men are suspected of being involved in a bribery and blackmail scheme that included demanding money from athletes to conceal their positive drug tests.
Davies is under investigation by the IAAF ethics commission after allegations he tried to cover up the extent of doping in Russia ahead of the World Championships in Moscow in 2013. He denies any wrongdoing but has stepped down from the world governing body while he is investigated.
The identity of ‘PD’ in the latest email is unclear. While the IAAF would not confirm anything officially, it is possible ‘PD’ was actually former council member and vice-chairman of the IAAF marketing and promotion commission, Professor Helmut Digel.
Digel worked closely with Papa Massata Diack on marketing strategies. – Daily Mail