Germany wants emergency IAAF meeting over WADA report

Published 01/15/2016, 8:53 AM EST

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via Reuters

MUNICH (Reuters) – Germany’s athletics chief has called for an extraordinary meeting of the IAAF after the second part of a World Anti-Doping Agency report heaped more pressure on the sport’s scandal-hit governing body.

WADA’s independent commission said on Thursday that the former head of world athletics, Lamine Diack, ran a clique that covered up organised doping and blackmailed athletes while senior officials looked the other way.

“The allegations of corruption against the former leadership of the IAAF are so damning, and have shaken the credibility of the world federation to such an extent, that a sign of awakening must be an extraordinary membership meeting,” said German athletics chief Clemens Prokop in a statement on Friday.

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The damning report delivered by former WADA President Dick Pound added to the rapidly growing scandal involving organised doping and its concealment that has thrown world athletics into turmoil.

Pound had already rocked the sport in November with the release of the first part of his report, which led to athletics superpower Russia being banned from competition for state-sponsored doping.

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But Thursday’s report said the IAAF’s governing council “could not have been unaware of the extent of doping in athletics and the non-enforcement of applicable anti-doping rules”, piling more pressure on the governing body.

“It is increasingly clear that far more IAAF staff knew about the problems than has currently been acknowledged,” it said. “The corruption was embedded in the organisation.

“It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on his own.”

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The scandal has also drawn comparisons with a corruption and governance scandal at the global soccer federation, FIFA.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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