A power struggle looms in athletics after Primo Nebiolo, the president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation and one of the most powerful men in world sport, died yesterday after a heart attack. He was 76.
In his 18 years as head of the federation, the Italian transformed athletics from a sport anchored in the Chariots of Fire era to one of the most commercially successful in the world.
When he assumed the federation's presidency in 1981 there were no world championships and no lucrative annual grand prix series or Golden League. The IAAF headquarters were in an unpretentious house in London with only three officials, two secretaries and a part-time clerk to look after less than £250,000. Under Nebiolo it struck sponsorship and television deals worth £7 billion and moved to headquarters in Monte Carlo.
Nebiolo's last major financial coup came in 1996 when he signed a deal with the European Broadcasting Union worth £220 million for coverage of the IAAF's major events.
"He was someone who in the world of sports left an indelible mark, said the IAAF spokesman Giorgio Reineri. "Years from now he will be remembered as a person with defects but also as a man who changed the world of sports."
But if Nebiolo's rule was characterised by wealth, it was also dogged by controversy involving cover-ups of positive drugs tests and allegations that he was involved in rigging the result of the long jump at the 1987 world championships in Rome, where an Italian, Giovanni Evangelisti, took the bronze medal.
Nebiolo made enemies in the last few years and dissatisfaction had been mounting. But no one wanted to make the first move against the godfather of athletics.
Since taking power from the Dutchman Adriaan Paulen he had never allowed his powers to be challenged. He firmly slapped down any attempt to unseat him, flying around the world to persuade candidates not to stand. In August he was elected by acclamation to another four-year term as IAAF president; intent on preserving his complete hold on power, he didn't groomed a successor.
Under the IAAF's constitution the first vice-president Lamine Diack of Senegal takes over as acting president. But the constitution does not specify when a new president should be elected and the matter will be top of the agenda when the IAAF's ruling council meet in Monte Carlo next week.
IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said yesterday: "Primo Nebiolo was one of the greatest leaders of world sport. He devoted all his life to the development of sport and especially to athletics.
"It is with great sadness that I learnt of his death," he added.
But Italy's 1960 200 metre Olympic champion Livio Berruti remembered Nebiolo with something less than affection.
"The judgement that I had before on Primo Nebiolo is one I'm sticking by today," said Berutti, who described the federation president as someone "who trampled over and polluted the sporting ideals that I believed in and which young people today believe in as well.
"Unfortunately, it's death that has removed Nebiolo from sport and not a movement from within the sporting world itself to defend certain basic rules such as respect, justice, impartiality and love.
"These are values which were amply forgotten by Primo Nebiolo."
Helmut Digel, seen as one of the potential successors to Nebiolo and often a critic of the Italian when he was in power, warned of difficult times ahead for the IAAF.
"Primo Nebiolo was a visionary," said the 55-year-old German. "He was a very intelligent man and a very able negotiator. With his death the IAAF finds itself in a very difficult situation," he added.
