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sportsThursday 31 December 2015
2015: A Year Of Sports Scandals With a Silver Lining
FIFA President Sepp Blatter arrives for a news conference in Zurich, Switzerland. 2015 was the as ongoing criminal probes of matches. The alleged
year when scandals off the field of play eclipsed exploits on it. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) in Switzerland and the Unit- wrongdoing at the IAAF,
ed States of soccer bribery however, raised the pos-
JOHN LEICESTER gal orders.” liberately under-inflated and corruption, promise to sibility that on-track results
AP Sports Writer “In the old days, sport was (and theoretically easier cloud FIFA’s ambitions for were corrupted by off-
PARIS (AP) — For the past well outside of anything to grip) footballs in Janu- a fresh start with the elec- track criminality, and that
12 months, scandals off that governments had fo- ary’s AFC title game on his tion of a new president in dopers may have robbed
the field of play eclipsed cused on,” Pound said in way to winning the Super February. In track and field, competitors of medals by
exploits on it. Beyond the an Associated Press inter- Bowl, and by the disgrace a cornerstone of the Olym- paying the sport’s guard-
usual cases of doping and view. “They were all pri- of Sepp Blatter, kicked out pic Games, a World Anti- ians to look the other way.
cheating that are sadly vate organizations and of soccer in December for Doping Agency-ordered Contacted repeatedly by
common in modern sports, they were kind of run infor- unethical conduct, end- investigation that Pound the AP, Diack’s lawyer has
shocking corruption in soc- mally like clubs and so on, ing his 17 scandal-scarred led concluded explosively refused to comment.
cer and athletics begged and have tried to pretend years as president of FIFA. in November that doping Tasked with cleaning up
the question of whether that they can do that even His heir-in-waiting, France’s in Russia was not only wide- the mess is British former
the vast riches and ac- in 2015 — and they can’t.” former midfield star Michel spread and deep-rooted middle-distance running
companying greed gen- In short, this was a year Platini, also was banned but also likely tacitly sanc- great Sebastian Coe,
erated by professional that left a sour taste for a dubious $2 million tioned by President Vladi- elected in August as Di-
sport are rotting the entire for sports fans but also payment that Blatter ap- mir Putin’s government. ack’s successor. But just
multi-billion dollar industry offered some hope of proved for the FIFA vice- A resulting blanket-ban months into his new job,
to its core. a brighter future. It was president in 2011. Their from competition could the credibility of the chief
On the upside, the stink got bookended by “Deflate- appeals of the eight-year see Russian track and field organizer of the 2012 Lon-
so bad that 2015 also saw gate,” which saw star NFL bans that decapitated the athletes miss the Rio de don Olympics suffered a
the forces of law and or- quarterback Tom Brady leadership of the world’s Janeiro Olympics unless blow when the BBC un-
der sit up and take action, accused of throwing de- most popular sport, as well the sporting powerhouse covered in November that
opening criminal investiga- can convince the Interna- Coe had spoken privately
tions, making high-profile New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady smiles and tional Association of Ath- to an executive at Nike, his
arrests and recovering tens waves goodbye to the media in Foxborough, Mass. 2015 was letics Federations that it long-time personal spon-
of millions of ill-gotten dol- the year when scandals off the field of play eclipsed exploits has made real changes. sor, about hosting the 2021
lars. That legal pressure on it. In March, the IAAF’s ethics world championships in
sped change, notably at commission also started in- Eugene. The Oregon city
soccer governing body (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia) vestigating alleged doping about 100 miles (160 kilo-
FIFA, forcing administrators cover-ups in distance-run- meters) south of the sports-
to abandon some of their ning power Kenya, which wear giant’s headquarters
old-school, shoddy, back- topped the world cham- outside Portland was sub-
room and amateur man- pionships medal table in sequently and controver-
agement practices and August. sially awarded the com-
enact reforms that should Those probes were just petition without an open
make them behave more the beginning of a scan- bidding process.
professionally. dal that threatened to sink Coe denied that working
“What we’re going through the IAAF in 2015, gravely for both the IAAF and Nike
now, it’s like a tectonic undermining not only the represented a conflict of
shift,” says International federation but trust in the interest and severed his
Olympic Committee veter- entire sport it oversees. In ambassadorial role with
an Dick Pound. “Sports or- November, three months the company. But the
ganizations are coming to after stepping down as affair left doubts about
realize — voluntarily or in- IAAF chief, Lamine Diack Coe’s judgment and, more
voluntarily — that they can was taken into police cus- broadly, fed into a domi-
no longer operate outside tody in France, suspected nant theme of 2015, which
of the larger social and le- of pocketing more than 1 was that sports administra-
million euros ($1.1 million) tors often appeared chron-
in an alleged scheme to ically out of touch with a
blackmail athletes and shift in the public mood
hush up their doping cases. against their clubby ways
Diack, who presided at the and, in worst cases, their
IAAF for nearly 16 years, is criminal habits.
under formal investigation “It simply won’t work in
for corruption and mon- this day and age,” Pound
ey laundering. If proven said. “You have to be
by France’s investigating more transparent, which
magistrates, the allega- doesn’t mean that you run
tions could be even grav- around buck naked, but
er than soccer’s massive people have got to under-
scandal. The U.S. Depart- stand how a decision was
ment of Justice’s sprawling reached, and by whom,
soccer case alleges more and for what reasons, and
than $200 million in bribes that sort of thing that never
and kickbacks in the selling used to happen. There was
of media and marketing a code of silence.”
rights. Although grievous, “Sport has got to change
the schemes seemingly ...,” he added, “or it’s go-
didn’t affect the outcome ing to be changed.”q
