The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) have ruled out investigating corruption claims concerning the 2017 IAAF World Championship bidding process.
The claims, made by UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner, accused Qatari officials of bribing the IAAF council in an attempt to win the rights to host the 2017 World Championships.
Warner had initially claimed to have been informed of the incident by a “very senior” IAAF official, later claimed to be the then-vice-president Sebastian Coe, on the night before the final vote in November 2011.
These claims were not made public by Warner until January this year, to which the now IAAF president Sebastian Coe promised to investigate them.
However, the IAAF Ethics Board have today dismissed the bribing allegations, describing in a statement that Lord Coe “has no recollection of hearing such a rumour or therefore of communicating it to Mr Warner.”
The statement added that all IAAF council members also had no recollection stating “none of the respondents have had any relevant evidence corroborative of Mr Warner’s recollection or relevant to the alleged factual matters the subject of the purported rumour,”
London eventually won the 2017 World Championship rights by 16 to 10 against Doha, who were instead given the right to host the 2019 championships.
The Qatar Athletics Federation have also denied the corruption claims, however French officials are currently investigating every World Championship bid made for 2009 up to 2022.
Their investigation follows former IAAF president Lamine Diack’s arrest for accepting bribes to cover up Russia’s recent doping scandal.
Despite the IAAF Ethics Board finding no evidence for Warner’s allegations, they have not ruled out future investigations should more evidence arise.
