German sportswear company Adidas will curtail its partnership deal with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) almost four years early, according to UK public-service broadcaster the BBC.
Confirmation of Adidas’s decision would come as a huge blow to the IAAF, which has been engulfed in a corruption and doping scandal that has implicated several leading officials in the sport, including its former president, Lamine Diack. Adidas, which is one of the IAAF's official partners, along with Canon, Mondo, Seiko, TBS, TDK and Toyota, signed an 11-year deal with the governing body in November 2008.
The BBC, citing anonymous sources, said that the sponsorship deal was worth around $8m (€7.4m) per year, and added that Adidas informed the IAAF in November that it was considering pulling the plug on the partnership early after a report outlined claims of state-sponsored doping in Russian athletics.
The BBC added that Adidas believes the corruption claims within the IAAF as a breach of the sponsorship contract. The governing body released a short statement this (Monday) morning to say: “The IAAF is in close contact with all its sponsors and partners as we embark on our reform process.”
Earlier this month, World Anti-Doping Agency commission chairman Dick Pound said that “corruption was embedded” within the IAAF under Diack, who was succeeded by Coe in August 2015.