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 WADA's independent commission said on Thursday that the former head
of world athletics, Lamine Diack, ran a clique that covered up
organized 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.
The damning report delivered by former WADA President Dick Pound
added to the rapidly growing scandal involving organized 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.
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 organization.
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"It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd
renegade acting on his own."
The scandal has also drawn comparisons with a corruption and
governance scandal at the global soccer federation, FIFA.
(This story has been corrected to add word "former" in third
paragraph)
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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