There were several stellar moments for sport in 2015, but as the year draws to a close, one can’t escape the fact that some of the major headlines it made had nothing to do with on-field feats of athletes but revolved around the moral turpitude of several high-profile officials.
Cases of bribes, doping and other instances of fraud exposed the cash rich underbelly of sports marketing and fixed sporting glory. Judges and prosecutors trashed the reputations of two of the leading Lords of the Rings in 2015 and criminal charges against Sepp Blatter and Lamine Diack were a warning that sport has got to clean up its act.
An early wake-up call at the luxury Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich on May 27 blew the lid on soccer’s chicanery.
The first seven FIFA officials were hauled away in a raid two days before Blatter had expected to seal an easy fifth term as head of football’s world governing body.
US attorney general Loretta Lynch said corruption was “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” in football. Blatter said he suspected the arrests were politically motivated. The battle was on.
Blatter got his vote after his only challenger Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, a FIFA vice president from Jordan withdrew. But four days later Blatter announced that a new election would be held on February 26 and that he would stand down.
Now 39 football officials and business executives who face charges in US courts account for $200mn in bribes given or taken.
A Swiss criminal investigation into FIFA’s finances delivered the knockout blow. Blatter is a formal suspect for “criminal mismanagement”, European football boss Platini was named in the inquiry over a “disloyal” two million Swiss franc ($2mn) payment he received in 2011.
FIFA have banned both men from football for eight years. That means Platini cannot even accept a ticket for the European Championships in his native France in 2016.
The IAAF has been in the firing line all year over widespread “state-supported” doping in Russia, Kenya and other countries.
A World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report told how one controller had to jump from a window in the middle of the night to stop local police taking samples he had gathered.
But British running legend Sebastian Coe had only been IAAF president for a few weeks when his veteran predecessor Lamine Diack of Senegal was arrested by French investigators.
He now faces charges of corruption, money laundering and accepting bribes to cover up failed Russian dope tests.
Russia is suspended from international athletics and racing against time to get back for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August. More criminal charges could follow and WADA is to release a new report in January likely to widen the agony in athletics with more countries named and shamed.
Coe has been forced to give up his role as a Nike “ambassador” but he defended the IAAF before the British parliament, insisting: “No, it’s not a corrupt organisation.”
The question now is whether athletics and football will come out stronger in the coming years. With the Olympics looming and the FIFA World Cup in Russia about two and a half years away, fans would be hoping that the troubles of the past year don’t return to haunt them anytime soon.