Father and son Diack team tarnishes IAAF

Lamine Diack often said that "athletics is a big family" but mounting evidence suggests the disgraced former IAAF president meant himself and his son.

Lamine Diack, who stood down as world athletics president in August before he was charged with corruption by French judges, and his son Pape Massata Diack, may have made millions from bribes and other shady deals linked to his 15 year tenure as head of the International Association of Athletics Federations.

According to a source close to the IAAF, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) could recommend that Lamine Diack, 82, is banned for life when it releases a new report on drugs in athletics on Thursday.

Pape Massata Diack, one of the ex-president's 15 children, was banned for life by the IAAF's ethics commission on January 7.

The commission found that the son, a former marketing consultant for the world body, former Russia athletics chief Valentin Balakhnichev and former Russian walking coach Alexei Melnikov "conspired to extort what were in substance bribes from the athlete by acts of blackmail."

The scandal has hit the standing of the Diack family hard in their native Senegal.
Lamine Diack, a former mayor of the capital, Dakar, and national assembly member, was the first non-European elected as head of world athletics in 1999.

Under his regime, the IAAF earned more than one billion euros ($1.1 billion) in television and sponsoring revenues.

As a respected international sports leader he spoke out against the demolition of a stadium in his home district of Dakar. Last year Diack senior was the backer of a wrestling bout in the city with a presentation staged next to the national monument in Dakar.

Since the charges were made he has been in France. The words of wisdom that he previously gave to the Senegalese media have dried up.

"He was presented as a shining white knight and at the finish line has been found out to be the Godfather of a kind of Senegalese mafia," Le Temoin newspaper said in a recent editorial.
French investigators have charged the elderly Diack with corruption, money laundering and conspiracy.

Diack, who had to resign as an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, a prestige title for barons of international sport, is said to have received more than one million euros ($1.1 million) in bribes from Russian athletes for covering up failed drug tests.

The younger Diack quit his post as an IAAF consultant in December 2014 following accusations that he asked for $5 million to promote Doha's bid to stage the 2017 world athletics championships. London won the contest but Doha will stage the 2019 championships.

He has also been named in the French criminal inquiry against his father. But a WADA report released last year said he played a key role in the rounding up of money from Russian athletes.

Marathon runner Liliya Shobukova told investigators she handed over about $600,000 to intermediaries to be able to keep running.

A WADA report said a Singapore-based company, Black Tidings, run by a friend of Pape Massata Diack paid Shobukova 300,000 euros in a bid to secure her silence about the bribes paid.

Diack junior has denied any link to attempts to secure bribes. Sources close to the IAAF say more revelations about the Diack family are expected.
Source :AFP