London - Doha's bids for the 2017 and 2019 world athletics championships are examined by the ethics committee of the ruling body IAAF, British federation chief Ed Warner said on Tuesday.
The UK Athletics chairman Warner was quoted as telling a hearing of the parliamentary committee for Culture, Media and Sport he was informed by IAAF officials that the ethics committee is looking into the bids of the Qatari capital.
"They have told me the 2017 and 2019 bids by Doha have been referred to their ethics commission," he was quoted by British media as saying.
Warner did not want to disclose the names of officials who had spoken him about rumours of brown envelopes containing cash being handed out before the vote for 2017.
London beat Doha by 16 to 10 votes in the election of the IAAF Council in November 2011. Doha was elected 2019 host in November 2014, 15-12 over the American bidder of Eugene, which was then controversially given the 2021 event without a bid process.
Warner also said at the hearing on doping in athletics that Russia should remain banned from athletics events at the Rio Olympics in August, a sanction imposed last year after report from the World Anti-Doping Agency speaking of widespread doping in the country.