Thursday 26 November 2015 23:44, UK
International Amateur Athletics Federation president Sebastian Coe has announced he is to step down from his ambassadorial role with sportwear company Nike.
Coe has worked as a paid ambassador for Nike - a position believed to be worth around £100,000 a year - but he faced repeated questions about a potential conflict of interest.
An internal Nike email leaked this week appeared to show him supporting the bid of Eugene, the US city with close links to the company, to host the 2021 World Athletics Championships.
Coe also announced that CSM, the sports marketing firm he heads, will not tender for any contracts that might lead to further allegations of conflicted interests.
The Briton, who is dealing with the aftermath of Russia's suspension from world competition, also said he was stepping down as chair of the British Olympic Association (BOA) after next year's Rio Games.
Asked whether he now accepted his Nike role represented a conflict of interest Coe told Sky Sports News HQ: "No I don't, but it's clear that reality and perception were getting badly tangled here.
"Our focus is entirely on steadying the ship, it's taking 18 hours a day, and this had become a distraction. I just felt that for all sorts of reasons it was better to focus entirely on the job in hand."
Coe told an earlier press conference the IAAF's ethics committee had cleared him to keep his roles with Nike and CSM but said: "I've made the following decisions: I've stepped down from my ambassadorial role with Nike which lasted 38 years. The current noise level around it is not good for Nike or the IAAF and is a distraction."
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 one million euros to cover up doping offences by Russian athletes.
