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Former senior Kenyan athletics official David Okeyo has been banned from the sport for life and fined US$50,000 (S$68,500) after being found guilty of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars of sponsorship payments for his personal use.
Okeyo, a former secretary-general and vice-president of Athletics Kenya (AK) as well as a member of the IAAF Council, and Joseph Kinyua, a former treasurer of Athletics Kenya, were investigated by the sport’s ethics board in relation to payments made by US sportswear company Nike between 2003 and 2015.
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In a 74-page judgement released on Thursday (Aug 30), the Board found that on many occasions Okeyo did not disclose to AK the withdrawals of the Nike money he made from AK bank accounts and he could also not show any evidence of what the money had been used for.He was thus found to have breached the ethics code on 10 occasions after taking sponsorship money that “could have been better directed to support the development of the sport of athletics in Kenya” and expelled him from his position on the IAAF Council.
He was ordered to pay the US$50,000 fine to AK.
Kinyua was found by the board to have “engaged in similar conduct” but as he was not an IAAF official at the time, it was deemed that he was not bound by the ethics rules in place at the time and hence he escaped sanction.
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The two men, along with former AK President Isaiah Kiplagat, were provisionally suspended at the end of 2015. Kiplagat has since died and consequently the ethics board dropped its investigation into his activities.
Okeyo and Kinyua deny wrongdoing, saying that the money was legitimate payment for their own expenses and expertise and for payments they personally made to athletes.
Okeyo said: “My lawyers will appeal the ruling. I think it’s discriminatory. All three of us were signatories to our bank. We will appeal.”
Kinyua told Reuters on Thursday that he was happy with the decision and that “justice was done”.
At the time of their suspensions Nike said the company had acted with integrity in its dealings with AK and that the “expectation and understanding” of the sponsorship deal was that the funds would be used to support and service the teams and athletes.
The judgement, however, showed that Nike had clearly been concerned about how the funds were being used and that the ethics panel was satisfied that in many, though not all of the instances it investigated, funds were being siphoned off.
“In failing to disclose the honorarium and service fee payments to the membership of AK, the panel is comfortably satisfied that the defendants diverted funds of AK for their own direct or indirect personal benefit, as charged,” the Board said in its findings.
