How athletics wishes it could fade into the background of the sporting landscape for just a while at least. When the revelations of corruption within the sport’s governing body, the IAAF emerged, closely followed by the news that Russian athletes had been engaging in “state-sponsored” doping, it seemed that the sport could sink no lower. How wrong we all were. In the last month since Dick Pound lifted the lid on these nefarious goings on, bad news has continued to submerge the sport.

Serious allegations have emerged regarding corruption in Kenya and its anti-doping process. In recent weeks, several more Kenyan athletes have been suspended for doping, taking the total number of Kenyans banned in the past three years to 40- a remarkable figure. The guilty individuals include the double world cross-country champion, Emily Chebet and Rita Jeptoo, winner of the Boston and Chicago marathons. And earlier this week, three Kenya Athletics officials were provisionally suspended for 180 days by the IAAF ethics commission as the governing body looks into allegations of “subversion” of the anti-doping process in Kenya and “improper diversion” of funds received from Nike. It has got so bad that last week a group of Kenyan athletes stormed the headquarters of the national governing body and demanded resignations in protest at the allegations of corruption and the lack of effort to deal with the crisis.

It is hard to see how athletics’ situation could now get any worse but we’ve all thought that before only to be proven wrong. The doping issue in Kenya is, arguably, even more concerning than that in Russia as the African country is a far more significant player in the sporting world - Kenya topped the medal table at this summer’s World Championships in Beijing while Russia was only ninth. Yet the Kenyan and Russian situations cannot necessarily be compared; the shortfalls of the African nation’s anti-doping system may be considerable but a number of individuals who have intimate knowledge of the country suggest that the notion of a state-sponsored doping programme is laughable. There are many dishonest officials and doctors which, coupled with athletes who are desperate to make a better life for themselves form a dangerous combination but this does not necessarily mean there is a government sponsored system in place. Few believe that there is either the organisation or the finances available to facilitate this.

Yet these Kenyan revelations may still not represent the bottom of the barrel for athletics. Following the release of Pound’s report in which he claimed that the Russian problem may well be the tip of the iceberg, several high-profile athletes stated their belief that wide-spread doping is not confined to just a few countries. And UK Athletics Chairman, Ed Warner said: “I suspect there are probably four, five or six nations that athletics has a problem with.” It is not encouraging moving forward.

In an intriguing development, Victor Conte tweeted this week: “I worked with elite track athletes using PEDs and was told about drug test cover ups by a US track and field official”. This is hugely relevant because Conte is not merely a random person spouting whatever comes into his head - rather, he is the founder of BALCO, the sports nutrition company which was at the centre of the Marion Jones doping case. It was not only Jones who was supplied by BALCO - there were numerous other high-profile athletes and Conte, despite his misdemeanours, is well-versed in the goings on within athletics, particularly the doping side of things. His claim about the USA cover-up should not necessarily be taken at face value but neither should it be dismissed out of hand just because of who said it. Conte has countless faults but he has little reason to tell blatant lies; yet he is never asked for advice on how to try to improve anti-doping.

The first step to fixing the problem is knowing what illegal activities are happening and Conte is in a better position than anyone at the IAAF in this respect. The governing body, despite the attempt to portray that they are taking a hard stance by suspending the Kenyan officials, still appear to be severely lacking in both backbone and direction. Suspending officials is the easy part because, in truth, the public don’t really care about officials. The public care about the athletes and whether the sport they are watching is fair, yet the IAAF is no closer to cleaning up its sport. Russia may be currently suspended from competition but few believe that they will be absent from Rio 2016. And there seems few signs that the IAAF has a solution to clean up Kenyan athletics, Russian athletics or any of the countries that may yet be revealed. A doping offender such as Conte may not be the IAAF’s first choice, but they are fast running out of options. The governing body has little to lose and consulting with him is worth a try because at the rate it’s going, athletics cannot get any worse.