To say it has been a depressing week for international sport is probably an understatement. Both stories had been brewing for sometime; it just took a while to gather all the evidence before the allegations made the press.
America's FBI made the first move as they arrested several FIFA board members for corruption and money laundering. The head of football’s world governing body, Sepp Blatter, went straight into damage limitation overdrive, denying knowledge of any wrongdoings within his sport. The timing was dangerously inconvenient as the news broke only days before the presidential elections were due to take place but somehow he was still re-elected. Thankfully due to mounting pressure Blatter has agreed to step down next year and I just hope that will mark the end of an era of corruption within the sport.
Athletics was the second sport to enter the firing line. Although the allegations are less concrete, the fact that Panorama has highlighted Mo Farah’s coach as a drugs cheat places an uncomfortable degree of scrutiny on the double Olympic champion. The inference was that athletics had many similarities with that of the Lance Armstrong era in cycling. I sincerely hope the accusations turn out to be false.
Cycling though, had a positive news story to end the week as Bradley Wiggins smashed the hour world record covering over fifty four kilometres in the London Velodrome on Sunday night. On another encouraging note we saw the inaugural women's sport week celebrated across the country which coincided with the start of the women's football World Cup. FIFA, despite all of its wrongdoings, has at least recognised the need for equality in the sport which the BBC has decided to follow by showing full coverage of all the games. It might be one step back but I feel we have taken two large ones forward.
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