We may think we know the cheats but we haven't the proof to back it up... their records have to stand

The problem with athletics records is that we all have very firm notions of the ones we think are bent. We just haven’t the proof to back it up. And it needs proof. Always proof. Individual failed tests, systematic state programmes, we can only act on what we know for sure — otherwise exceptional deeds can never occur.

Chris Froome beats cheats up mountains. That’s not the same as being one, though. Usain Bolt runs faster than Ben Johnson did at the 1988 Olympics. We must invest in his innocence, too.

The call by UK Athletics for all records to be scrapped and started afresh in what is termed ‘The Clean Era’ is well intended, but writes an ideological cheque the sport simply cannot cash. 

American sprinters Justin Gatlin (left) and Tyson Gay at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing

If we erase all statistics now, Bolt would no longer hold a 100 metres record that could then be recalibrated by drug cheats Tyson Gay or Justin Gatlin. The clean era? Just because a few crooks are at last getting their collars felt does not mean athletics is pristine in 2016. And just because the 1980s were the equivalent of the Wild West doesn’t mean all achievements prior to the current IAAF meltdown can be discarded. We cannot rewrite the history we find unpleasant.

Paula Radcliffe makes a strong point. A single doping conviction should disqualify all achievements. She cited Linford Christie’s positive test in 1999 as being enough to erase all previous marks including, presumably, his Olympic gold and silver medals.

It is hard, however, to bring in a rule that purely governs retrospectively. Surely, if all past achievements are eradicated, then all future ones cannot be considered, either. A cheat is a cheat. It is hardly consistent that Gatlin’s positive tests would wipe out his 2004 Olympic gold, but not affect the medal he could win at Rio 2016.

A retired athlete could have an entire career erased, but a contemporary cheat could run with impunity. Yet to say a failed test makes all future times ineligible is the equivalent of imposing a life ban, and this thought terrifies the legal experts at the IAAF. 

Paula Radcliffe makes a strong point that a single doping conviction should disqualify all achievements

It is a mess. Not least because we think we know the identity of the villains, but not how to expunge them without a heap of collateral damage.

Take Florence Griffith-Joyner. We know what we think about improvement that comes from nowhere. In 1988, Griffith-Joyner shaved 0.47sec off her fastest 100m time, 0.62sec from her fastest 200m time, won two Olympic gold medals, set two world records that have never been touched, and retired. She never failed a test, and now she’s dead.

So what are we going to do with that? Her achievements are so wrapped in controversy that, 10 years after her last race, the coroner wanted her corpse tested for steroids. It was too late — she didn’t have enough urine in her bladder — and it is too late now.

If Griffith-Joyner was a cheat, she was too quick for us. But if we remove Flo-Jo from history, is it permissible to omit the four American girls who ran the fastest 4 x 100m relay at the 2012 Olympics and are considered clean? 

Usain Bolt celebrates setting a world record time in the 100m at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin

Gatlin celebrates after finishing first in the men's 100m at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens

Then there is Jarmila Kratochvilova, described by steroid expert and author John Hoberman as the ‘most masculinised female athlete I have ever seen’.In 1983, running the 800m for the first time, she recorded 1min 53.28sec — a standard so extraordinary that only once in the 32 years since has an athlete got within a second of it.

So we know what we think there, too, what we thought the first time her manly image was beamed into our living rooms. Yet looking masculine isn’t proof, either. We cannot retrospectively ban an athlete for being butch. Kratochvilova did not fail a test and when, in 2006, a Czech newspaper said it had uncovered evidence of systematic state doping under the Communist regime, her name was not in the files.

The record that is invariably cited when retrospective action is discussed belongs to Marita Koch: 47.60sec in the 400m. Although the times throughout her career are consistent — she was always among the fastest — so is the allegation of a systematic doping programme in East Germany that would have ensnared her from an early age. 

Bolt (front) beat Gatlin (left) to win the men's 100m World Championship in Beijing last year

Very specific Stasi files detailing her drug use between 1981 and 1984 have emerged, as has a letter from her complaining that a sprinting rival, Barbel Wockel, was receiving larger steroid doses, through a relative at the state pharmaceutical company Jenapharm.

Despite Koch’s denials, the evidence is damning. Yet the IAAF cannot act because the World Anti-Doping Agency has a 10-year statute of limitations. Koch would therefore have to admit to cheating, and she will not.

‘I never tested positive, and I never did anything which I should not have done at that time,’ she said in 2014, which is not the same as denying she took drugs, but enough to keep the IAAF’s lawyers at bay.

Nor is Koch likely to take a witness stand any time soon. A book containing detailed charts of her steroid use came out in 1992. Koch threatened legal action, but did not pursue. 

Florence Griffith-Joyner (left) in action at the 1988 Olympic Games and Marita Koch (right) pictured in 1979

In 2014, the IAAF inducted her into its Hall of Fame — the same academy that finds room for Wang Junxia, who took 42 seconds off the record for the women’s 10,000m in 1993, working with Chinese coach Ma Junren and, if he is to be believed, nothing stronger than the occasional bowl of turtle blood.

And, encapsulated there, is the terrible confusion of it all. We can’t erase all records because that punishes the innocent, but we cannot arbitrarily consider certain individuals guilty because that is unfair without proof.

Yet if we presume innocence, some extremely dubious athletes and outlandish achievements are going to be placed on the IAAF’s pedestal to be adored. It is a horrid muddle and, whatever path is taken, it is plain the punishments for cheating must be made unpalatably harsh.

This is a sport on the brink of ruination, one in which it is believed cheats do not just prosper, but can become untouchable, in time.

UK Athletics are right to provoke debate, but their solution is misguided. We cannot alter history; simply ensure it is not repeated. 

Sampson needs a reality check 

Speaking before FIFA’s Ballon d’Or ceremony, where he was nominated for women’s coach of the year, England manager Mark Sampson made a familiar plea. ‘We want women’s football to be honestly evaluated,’ he said.

‘We want people to criticise and assess us like any other sport.’

Is he sure about that? In a recent interview with The Independent, Laura Bassett talked about the reaction to the own goal that knocked England out of the 2015 World Cup. It was not one that David Beckham, Wayne Rooney or Phil Neville, for instance, would recognise.   

England women's manager Mark Sampson was nominated for the women's coach of the year award

Laura Bassett (left) scores an own goal for England during the Women's World Cup semi-final against Japan

Bassett had just returned from a free holiday to St Lucia, paid for by Kuoni to ‘cheer her up’. Yet an honest evaluation of her mistake would acknowledge that England lost possession sloppily, and Bassett was slow to recover and her technique was poor, attempting to clear with the wrong foot.

That fall-out is interesting, though. The Independent won’t have paid for access, but employees at the Football Association certainly did attempt to negotiate some fee on Bassett’s behalf for interviews in the aftermath. And while Bassett does get spiteful comments on social media, she puts the ratio at 1:15. The other 14 are invariably supportive. 

It is not a world that England’s male footballers inhabit. Not that the abuse they receive for an error — Beckham was hanged in effigy after 1998 — is appropriate, just an illustration of two worlds. Sampson is right to crave respect; but he should be careful what he wishes for with the rest of it. Nobody will get a Caribbean bonus for an own goal in France this summer. Desert island exile, maybe.

Redemption is made easy

Why are some clubs let down by their players? Because they make it easy for them. Branislav Ivanovic, who went from being one of the finest full backs in Europe to supposedly forgetting how to play football in the opening months of the season, has rallied in recent weeks and looks to have earned a one-year contract extension at Chelsea.

His recent rise is as inexplicable as his dramatic fall, but his employers have chosen not to dwell on that. It could be argued they deserve all they get.

Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic in action in the FA Cup against Scunthorpe's Kevin van Veen (left)

And while we're at it... 

The Premier League deny the fixtures scheduled so close to the FA Cup third round are an aggressive act. How do they explain, then, that the same thing happens immediately after the FA Cup fourth round, too?

There is a full Premier League programme on February 2 and 3, with eight of the 10 fixtures scheduled for Tuesday night. This means as many as 12 Premier League teams could be playing within 48 hours of an FA Cup tie. And we know the consequences of that: weakened teams and another round of Cup matches that dwindle in importance and spectacle.

Tottenham versus Leicester was still a decent game on Sunday, but with both teams under strength it hardly spoke of the FA Cup as a vibrant, vital competition. Increasingly, as a way of easing fixture congestion, the idea of deciding all FA Cup matches on the day, with extra time and a shoot-out, is entertained. Some think this would kill off a grand old competition; yet it is already dying a slow death, poisoned as much from within.

Tottenham and Leicester met in the FA Cup on Sunday before they both had midweek Premier League fixtures

Loyal Curtis may be a huge gamble

On December 30, 1991, Sunderland sacked Denis Smith. They were 17th in the old Second Division. Malcolm Crosby, his assistant, took over as caretaker while a replacement was sought. That task became harder as Crosby guided Sunderland past Port Vale, Oxford, West Ham, Chelsea, Norwich, and to the FA Cup final. 

Crosby was a Sunderland fan, who had stood on the Wembley terraces for the famous 1-0 win over Leeds, and supporters clamoured for his permanent appointment. On April 29, the board caved. Crosby was delighted, so too the locals, but Sunderland’s rivals were most pleased of all. Sunderland finished that season in 18th place. Crosby did not improve them and was considered a soft appointment, an able assistant but not the main man. 

He was sacked the following season with Sunderland 17th, again. Similarly romantic impulses may be at work with the promotion of Alan Curtis at Swansea. He is a long-serving club loyalist, and former assistant to Michael Laudrup and Garry Monk. 

Yet Swansea’s rivals will note the club were 15th on the day Monk was sacked, and after Curtis’s five games in charge are 17th. Monk was averaging 0.93 points per game; Curtis 1. And while Crosby at least got Sunderland to Wembley, Swansea were the FA Cup’s big third round casualty, knocked out by Oxford on Sunday. What at first glance appears a level-headed compromise — give it to the company man — can sometimes prove the biggest gamble of all.

Dele Alli has doubled his money at Tottenham, signing a five-year contract worth £25,000 a week. It sounds a lot for a teenager who was at Milton Keynes Dons in League One last season, but if Alli is among England’s top performers at the European Championship next summer — as he should be — it is a fraction of what will be on offer elsewhere. By July, £25,000 might not be the half of it. 

Dele Alli has signed a five-year contract at Tottenham that doubled his money to £25,000 a week

Once again, the FIFPro World XI does not include a Premier League or English player. Yet a quick glance at who is in suggests we should not be too downhearted.

The 20,000 professional footballers polled appear to have voted like star-struck 11-year-olds at the PlayStation controls. There are only five clubs represented, with one player each from Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint-German and four from Barcelona. That leaves another quartet outstanding — all from Real Madrid. Seriously? A 4-4 draw, with Barcelona, in 2015. How does that work?

In the time considered, Barcelona have won the Champions League, La Liga, the Copa del Rey, the UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup. Real Madrid have won zip. Barcelona have played Real Madrid twice, winning 2-1 at home and 4-0 away. Barcelona have lost six times in all competitions; Real Madrid 12. 

The FIFA FIFPro World XI was announced with no room for a Premier League player in the side

They are not equals right now. There is a clear with The FIFA inner.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s presence is understandable, but is Marcelo the best left back or Sergio Ramos the outstanding centre half? And why nobody from Atletico Madrid?

Looking at the La Liga table, Real’s players may not even be the best in the capital, let alone the world.