Sebastian Coe has stepped down from his ambassadorial role with Nike with immediate effect.
The IAAF president had been under pressure to relinquish the post he has held for nearly 40 years after being accused of a conflict of interest. In a press conference following a meeting of the IAAF’s council, Coe admitted his role had become a distraction but denied that it was a conflict of interest.
“It is clear that perception and reality have become horribly mangled. I have stepped down from the Nike position I have held for 38 years,” he said.
His decision comes two days after allegations surfaced the Coe lobbied for Eugene to host the 2021 World Athletics Championships. The American city has close links with Nike and was awarded the event without a bidding process, despite strong interest from Swedish city Gothenburg.
Coe, who said his decision was not a reaction to those claims, added: “The current noise level around this role is not good for the IAAF and for Nike. It is a distraction to the 18-hour days that I and my teams are working to steady the ship. I don’t feel my role with Nike is a conflict of interest but is has become a distraction.”
Coe also announced that he will step down as chair of the British Olympic Association after the conclusion of the Rio Games next year and that his sports marketing company CSM would not tender any IAAF work.
The 59-year-old emphasised, though, that the IAAF ethics commission had told him he could retain his roles with Nike and CSM as long as he was not involved in any decision relating to them.
Coe pointed out he retained his Nike role through his time as London 2012 chairman and BOA chief, with Nike’s rivals adidas the organisations’ partners.
Coe added: “The decision I chose to take in the last few weeks was one that I think reflected my absolute intention to focus as long and as hard as I can on steadying the ship that has been rocking rather badly recently.”
Coe has found himself at the centre of one of sport’s biggest scandals since taking over as head of the IAAF, an unpaid position, from Lamine Diack in August.
Revelations by the World Anti-Doping Agency about a state-sponsored doping system in Russia have seemed the country banned from international competition by the IAAF, a sanction the Russian athletics federation (ARAF) has now accepted.
There have been allegations of corruption and cover-ups at the IAAF too, with Diack being investigated over an alleged payment of more than €1m to cover up doping offences by Russian athletes.
However, former long jumper Jade Jones said Coe’s delay in leaving his Nike position had damaged his credibility.
She said on Twitter: “Coe should have ended role with Nike asap, to show good faith & integrity! Now he’s made himself look as if hes “like” his predecessor!”
The allegations Coe lobbied Diack about the host of the 2021 World Championships came in a BBC investigation centred around an internal Nike email from January claiming Coe gave assurances he supported the Eugene bid, but had been told by Diack that no decision on the championships would be made in April.
Diack later announced the award of the event in April, catching many by surprise. Coe, who had already rejected the claims, said his conversation in the email was entirely above board.
“I was in a conversation with a Nike official in discharging my ambassadorial role, discussing a range of issues,” he said.
“I was asked specifically about my view of what was happening (around the hosting of the championships). It wasn’t the only question I’d had in that subject - there was a high level of speculation from both bidding cities as to what the process was going to be. I sought clarification from the president of the IAAF, who told me he saw no reason as to why that bidding process shouldn’t continue.
“The best advice I could give to any cities was to put your best foot forward and get into the bidding process.”
However, culture, media and sport select committee member Damian Collins said Coe still had questions to answer. Collins, who had called on the peer to cut his ties with Nike, said on Twitter doing so was “the right decision”.
But he added: “Even though Seb Coe has given up his Nike job there are still questions to answer about the awarding of the Eugene 2021 world championships.”
