EXCLUSIVE: ‘Shock and horror’ as IAAF heads for financial apocalypse
By Neil Wilson
Last updated at 12:01 AM on 26th March 2010
Athletics has been warned that its world ruling body faces bankruptcy unless it cuts costs.
The startling scenario was set before the executive council of the International
Association of Athletics Federations, which runs the premier Olympic sport, by its treasurer, Frenchman Jean Poczobut, at a meeting in Doha this month.
The crisis could even bubble over before the 2012 London Games and the IAAF’s centenary in the same year.
There was ‘shock and horror’ among council members, including Sebastian Coe, a vice-president and chairman of the 2012 organising committee.
Poczobut presented a financial projection that showed spending is far above its £30million income, and reserves, £50m 10 years ago, will soon be exhausted.
His deliberate intention was to alert the IAAF to the potential for a financial apocalypse.
An extraordinary meeting of the IAAF’s small, all-powerful executive board, chaired by president Lamine Diack, and on which Coe and senior vice-president and pole vailut legend Sergey Bubka sit, has been called to discuss an ‘austerity budget’ for the next four years.
One threat is a cut in prize money and record bonuses for athletes at IAAF events.
Prize money peaks at about £5m for each of its biennial world championships.
Declining television and marketing revenue, which make up almost 90 per cent of its income, have hit it hard.
Major networks such as BBC and ZDF in Germany did not screen the world indoor championships this month, saying that the IAAF was asking too much.
The BBC will also not screen Sunday’s world cross country championships from Poland.
But, while income has declined during Diack’s 11-year presidency, spending has increased with his determination to spread the sport’s popularity through less developed continents. The IAAF now has 220 member nations, more than the number of countries in the United Nations.
The irony is that athletics is struggling to market itself despite the emergence of record-breaking Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt, who seems the ideal man to sell the sport.
The IAAF, which has headquarters in luxurious offices in Monte Carlo, will find it difficult to slim its vast staff. So cuts are most likely in its costly development programmes for Africa and Asia.
Diack has announced that he will not stand again in 2011. Bubka, Coe and Nawal el Moutawakel are seen as the most likely successors. Whoever takes on the job faces having to pick up the pieces.