Isabelle Westbury is a freelance journalist who writes for the SII. Her focus is on politics and sport, especially cricket. She has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Mail and The Sun, and broadcasts on cricket for the BBC. She has an undergraduate degree from Oxford University, where she was President of the Oxford Union, as well as a postgraduate degree in law. She is also Middlesex CCC women’s cricket captain.
All posts by Isabelle Westbury
UK Athletics has announced that ‘former coach George Skafidas has been provisionally suspended from participating in athletics after being charged with having committed anti-doping rule violations.’ In a press release on Monday, the governing body for athletics in the UK said that the provisional suspension issued by UK Anti-Doping...
Over the past few years the fight for equality between the sexes in sport has been gaining momentum. Arguments in favour of increased investment, sponsorship and media coverage in women’s sport are now being heard on multiple platforms and the efforts to implement appropriate practices are increasing. While the...
ATHLETICS – ANTI-DOPING MARTA DOMINGUEZ BANNED FOR 3 YEARS BY THE COURT OF ARBITRATION FOR SPORT (CAS) Lausanne, 19 November 2015 – A Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Panel has found the Spanish middle-distance runner Marta Dominguez Azpeleta guilty of an anti-doping rule violation and sanctioned her with a...
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Olivier Niggli as WADA’s new Director General. Mr. Niggli, who has held the role of Chief Operating Officer since 2014, succeeds long-standing Director General, David Howman, who has chosen not to seek a further extension of his...
French prosecutors have reportedly found €87,000 in cash at the house of the former Director of the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) medical and anti-doping department, Gabriel Dollé. In a story broken by the Associated Press, police reportedly searched Dollé’s house near Nice, France, as part of a...
Franz Beckenbauer, Head of Germany’s Organising Committee which bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, is alleged to have signed a contract promising FIFA Executive Committee member Jack Warner ‘various services’ shortly before Germany won the bid to host the World Cup by just one vote. The German newspapers...
Diack resigns from International Athletics Foundation Lamine Diack has resigned as President of the International Athletics Foundation (IAF), the charity that assists the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in ‘perpetuating the development and promotion of athletics worldwide.’ Diack, who was President of the IAAF until Sebastian Coe took...
A good day to bury bad news The President of the German Football Association (DFB), Wolfgang Niersbach, has resigned ‘with immediate effect’. In a statement posted on the DFB’s website, Niersbach said, ‘I maintain and want to make it absolutely clear that I had no knowledge of the background...
It’s been a busy few months for anti-corruption in sport, with the on-going FIFA scandal erupting in May; resignations, corruption allegations and match-fixing trials plaguing the world of cricket; and now athletics has been mired in a scandal of its own. As the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) prepares to...
• Diack arrest update: Lamine Diack’s family have issued a statement in response to his arrest by French police on allegations of corruption. The former IAAF President was arrested earlier this week over allegations that he accepted money from Russian authorities in order to cover up positive doping tests....
• Platini integrity check on hold until investigation concluded • German police raid German FA headquarters Platini integrity check on hold until investigation concluded FIFA’s Electoral Committee will reportedly not carry out an integrity check on FIFA Presidential candidate Michel Platini until after their investigation into allegations that Platinit...
• African under-age football teams have suspensions lifted: The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has lifted suspensions on 15 national U17 and U20 teams. The move follows a meeting of the CAF’s Executive Committee in which the decision was made. According to the BBC, the bans were given for ‘breaches of regulations, including no-shows...
Former Brazil football President pleads not guilty following extradition Former Brazilian football confederation (CBF) President José Maria Marin was earlier this week extradited from Switzerland to the USA on charges of corruption surrounding the FIFA scandal. Appearing in front of a US District Court in Brooklyn, New York, just...
The Chief Operating Officer of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Sundar Raman, has reportedly resigned. According to the IPL Chairman, Rajeev Shukla, Raman had ‘submitted his resignation to the BCCI president and the BCCI president has accepted it.’ Raman is under investigation by the Lodha Committee for an alleged...
A former rower has reportedly told a court in Bilbao, Spain, how he was injected on a daily basis with ‘more than eight syringes’ filled with a concoction of performance-enhancing drugs. In the first day of an anti-doping trial, Spanish newspapers are reporting that the rower, appearing as a protected witness,...
