On Friday, the IAAF's ethics commission handed down suspensions of 180 days each to Davies, his wife Jane Boulter-Davies and Pierre-Yves Garnier.

The commission said it took this step because of concerns about an undisclosed amount of money given to Davies in 2013 by former IAAF president Lamine Diack's son Papa Massata Diack, an IAAF marketing consultant at the time.

The ethics board alleges that "Mr. Davies received an undisclosed cash payment in 2013 from Mr. Papa Massata Diack...the circumstances and concealment of which call into question whether the payment was intended to have and/or in fact produced any manipulative effect."

Davies is furthermore suspected of having "misled an IAAF Ethics Board investigator in respect of the matter identified above."

The main evidence for such allegations are emails exchanged by Davies and Papa Massata Diack.

Lamine Diack, who was also a honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, is thought to have accepted a million euros in return for suppressing positive doping tests. The IOC suspended him on November 10, 2015. On January 7 of this year, the IAAF suspended Papa Massata Diack.

The IAAF itself is accused of knowing about systematic doping in Russian athletics. The IAAF suspended the entire Russian athletics federation on November 26, 2015. On June 17, the IAAF is set to decide whether Russian track-and-field athletes will be allowed to compete at the Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.