INTERNATIONAL sport is a cesspit. Not a week passes without allegations of scandal, corruption, bribery, racism, cheating, blackmail, child abuse or bad governance – by no means an inclusive catalogue. Principles of integrity, fair play, respect for opponents, and the rules of almost all games you care to mention, have been traduced. Sport is lost in a Bermuda Triangle with its moral and ethical compass defunct.

Corruption runs from government level (President Putin), the former East German administration, and global federation presidents (Lamine Diack, athletics), through coaches and doctors to competitors themselves. And that's only the doping.

Putin is in denial, refusing to accept the verdict of the sports community – yesterday former FIFA president Sepp Blatter accepted his invitation to next year's World Cup. Yet Putin is not alone. Iran's former president, Mohammad Khatami, praised a judoka for refusing to fight an Israeli at the Athens Olympics. Khatami insisted Iran considered Khatami "champion of the 2004 Olympic Games."

Sport is replete with officials convinced power elevates them above the law and the rules. Let's call it Weinstein-Savile Syndrome. Men like the infamous Blatter; Pat Hickey, the suspended Irish IOC member facing trial in Brazil on charges of ticket-touting, theft, tax evasion, money-laundering and criminal association; Xiao Tian, China’s deputy sports minister jailed for 10 years for corruption.

Abuse of young footballers is endemic. Some 12 other sports at dozens of venues are under investigation. Yet despite concerns and mounting criticism, the FA delayed an inquiry.

The same body was embroiled this week in allegations of racism, blackmail, and bullying around the Eniola Aluko affair. It triggered manager Mark Sampson's sacking, and the FA being summoned before Parliament. They made a public apology but emerged humiliated, after chairman Greg Clarke attempted to divert attention by attacking the Players' Union. He was castigated by the Westminster committee.

Britain's wealthiest sport is incompetent and dishonest. It's hard to disagree with Aluko's assertion that chief executive Martin Glenn resorted to conduct "bordering on blackmail". Yet in its arrogance, the FA board still declines to act.

Abuse is not a uniquely British problem. This week's news included a report that London 2012 gold-medal US gymnast McKayla Maroney was sexually abused by a former team doctor. He's in a Michigan jail awaiting trial. Headlines also included a claim that South African World Cup organiser Danny Jordaan raped singer Jennifer Ferguson.

A common thread runs through this – powerful men against whom officialdom declines to act and ordinary mortals afraid to talk. That also applies to competitors subservient to sport's omerta.

GB sport governance and conduct is currently being questioned: British Cycling (bullying, culture of fear); British Bobsleigh (racism, "toxic atmosphere"); Archery GB (police investigation of an alleged incident involving a female athlete); British Canoeing (investigation into abuse); British Para Swimming (inquiry into bullying and "a climate of fear").

On Thursday the former head of Brazil's Olympic committee, Carlos Nuzman, was charged with bribery in securing 2016 votes for Rio. Charges include running a criminal organisation, breaking currency laws, and money-laundering.

Nuzman and the Rio State governor allegedly solicited a payment made three days before the vote. Among those involved were Diack, disgraced former president of world athletics, and his son. Father was then an influential IOC member eligible to vote on the 2016 venue. Both men have now been charged.

Warned about corruption and election fraud in Brazil, the IOC told the whistle-blower to address complaints to the very organisation headed by Nuzman.

Diack was finally suspended by the IAAF – bribed to bury Russian doping positives. According to the Guardian, Diack junior spent hundreds of thousands on jewellery at the time of both the Rio and Tokyo 2020 votes.

As The Herald revealed, funds to the Diacks were allegedly channelled through a Singapore company, Black Tidings (that means "launder black cash" in Hindi!).

This will refocus scrutiny on the Olympic movement whose moral high-ground stance is gey shoogly. IOC president Thomas Bach's response to allegations around Tokyo bidding was that they'd done as much to address corruption as any organisation.

Yet reform on what can only be described as an Olympian scale had been conducted after the exposure of bribes around the Winter Games in Salt Lake City. This is now demonstrably ineffective.

Backhanders then included sexual favours for IOC members, 13 of whom were eventually disciplined, sacked, or resigned. Cash, jobs, jewellery, holidays, US visas, college education, medical and cosmetic surgery fees, first-class travel – all were provided to influence votes. It was even arranged for the pianist daughter of Korean IOC vice president Kim Yong-un to play in Sydney Opera House. She was of most modest talent, but her father (who brokered the 1988 Games for Seoul) almost landed the IOC presidency before resigning to escape the sack. He was eventually jailed.

The movement claim the stables were purged, but the latest allegations suggest the stench remains rife.

The IOC pays lip service without commitment. On Thursday, following Nuzman's arrest, they ordered members to sign a 27-page "ethical principles" document. Insidethegames.biz listed a range of banned luxury items including watches, pens, wine, electronic equipment, cameras, gold, precious metals, money and gift vouchers.

Too little, and too late.

Many who think sport matters no longer trust what they see. Every issue which erodes sport's intrinsic ethos devalues the brand.

If the likes of the IOC and FA do not act radically, robustly, and soon, the game's up.