MONTE CARLO: Jean Gracia has been appointed as interim chief executive officer/general secretary by the embattled International Association of Athletics Federation.

This is one of the first outward-looing steps since Lord Sebastian Coe became president at the beginning of September and launched a review of the organisational structure.

This process will be concluded with the appointment of a new permanent ceo.

A shortlist of international candidates is being drawn-up and the IAAF hope it will be in a position to make an appointment by the middle of the year.

Until that appointment is made Gracia, the current vice-president of European Athletics, has been appointed to support the day-to-day operations of the IAAF in Monaco.

Coe said: “Jean Gracia, who is a former general secretary of the French federation and a current vice-president of European Athletics, brings vast experience and will assist the continued smooth running of the association in the interim.

“He will act as the focal point for all our member federations and partners, and support me with work involving the executive board and council.”

The 60-year-old Frenchman fills the vacancy left by the departure in October from the post of general secretary of Essar Gabriel who had been in the post for four years.

Gabriel’s name featured in a reference, by the independent report for the World Anti-Doping Agency compiled by IOC veteran Dick Pound, to the unexplained increase from $6m to $25m for local television rights of the 2013 World Championships in Moscow.

According to the report Gabriel attended a meeting in Moscow in 2012 between the director of the Russian television, IAAF marketing consultant Papa Massata Diack (son of then-president Lamine Diack), legal adviser Habib Cissé and Russian federation president Valentin Balakhnichev, who was also IAAF treasurer.

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