Papa Massata Diack, son of former athletics chief, to face retrial in 2026

The appeals court in Paris on Monday postponed the corruption retrial of Papa Massata Diack, the son of disgraced former athletics supremo Lamine Diack who died in 2021, until September 2026.

Diack, whose father led the IAAF — now called World Athletics — from 1999 to 2015, was one of six men convicted in France in 2020 for hushing up 23 Russian doping offences in exchange for Russian sponsorship contracts.

He was originally sentenced to five years in prison and fined one million euros (USD 1.1 million) but in 2024 France’s highest court said that the trial could be reheard at the Paris appeals court.

Earlier this year the retrial was delayed until December, but at a hearing on Monday it was decided to delay it until September 8 next year for reasons of the organisation of the court timetable.

The trial in 2020 heard the prosecution allege that Papa Massata Diack, known as PMD, and his father had overseen a corrupt network that set out to hide drug offences and delay or erase sanctions for doped Russian athletes.

As a result of hiding the doping cases, Russian athletes were able to compete at the 2012 London Olympics and 2013 world championships in Moscow.

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In return, Russian sponsors renewed their contracts with the IAAF.

PMD had a high-profile role as a marketing consultant for the IAAF.

He was not present in court for Monday’s hearing and remains in his native Senegal which refuses to extradite the 60-year-old.

PMD was found guilty of being an accomplice in a bribery scheme and of having embezzled funds to the tune of 15 million euros at the expense of the IAAF.

World Athletics, headed since 2015 by British double Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe, was seeking 41.2 million euros in damages.

Published on Dec 08, 2025