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RUSSIA is not the only country with systemic doping problems, says UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner.

A World Anti-Doping Agency commission report has accused Russia of running a “state-sponsored” doping programme.

Commission chairman Dick Pound said Russia’s athletics federation should be banned from the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Warner told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I suspect that there are probably four, five or six nations that athletics really has a problem with.”

He also said athletics’ world governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), must be restructured to combat the problem.

Warner revealed that he had spoken to IAAF president Lord Coe since Monday’s publication of Wada’s independent commission, which examined allegations of doping, cover-ups and extortion in Russian athletics, and also implicated the IAAF.

Coe has told the BBC that the Russian athletics federation, Araf, has been asked to respond to the allegations by the end of the week.

The 59-year-old said that after reviewing the feedback the IAAF “would look at a range of options, including sanctions”, which could result in Russia’s suspension from the sport.

Russia’s sports ministry has said it will work more closely with Wada, although the Kremlin has described the report as “groundless” and sports minister Vitaly Mutko told state TV: “Doping is not the problem of Russia. Russia shouldn’t be singled out. It’s a world problem.”

The 323-page report said that “acceptance of cheating at all levels is widespread” in Russia and suggested that neither Araf, the Russian anti-doping agency (Rusada), nor the Russian Federation can be considered anti-doping code-compliant.

The report also said the London 2012 Olympics were “sabotaged” by “widespread inaction” against athletes with suspicious doping profiles; accuses Moscow laboratory director Grigory Rodchenko of asking for and accepting bribes and intentionally destroying samples he was told to keep; and recommends that five Russian athletes and five coaches should be given lifetime doping bans.

Dick Pound, who chaired the Wada investigation, said the situation was “worse than we thought”, adding that “it may be a residue of the old Soviet Union system”.

Warner backed the recommendation to suspend Russia from competition “until they put their house in order”, adding: “If you punish one or two innocent Russian athletes for the greater good of the sport, that is a moral dilemma I am willing to grasp.”

He also suggested that Russia is unlikely to be the only country guilty of doping, saying that “athletics has probably got some other nations to root out”.

He added that while “there are undoubtedly drugs cheats in many corners of athletics”, he believed systemic doping did not occur in nations in the Western world.

‘Change has to happen now’

During a special BBC Radio 5 live programme examining the independent report, Britain’s marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe said: “I don’t think anyone is under the impression it’s only Russia.”

On the same programme, former British sprinter Darren Campbell warned of “darker days to come”.

He said: “This report was about Russia, and they need to be punished if this holds up, but we’ll lose sight on the bigger issues if we focus on Russia. It’s about cleaning everything out.

“There’s people talking about testing out in Kenya and Jamaica. We can’t have rumours anymore.

“We need to understand how the Russians got away with it. How did this happen yet nobody knew?

“No matter how dark and depressing it gets, change has to happen now.”

‘This cannot be a one-man crusade’

Coe, elected IAAF president in August, described the Wada report as “alarming” and has said he will seek urgent approval from members to consider sanctions against the Russian federation.

The report found evidence of multiple rules breaches by IAAF officials and found the governing body to be “inexplicably lax in following up suspicious blood (and other) profiles”.

It has also been criticised for its handling of the allegations, with Coe himself describing claims about suspicious blood profiles involving some athletes as “a declaration of war on my sport” in August.

On Monday, Coe said that “if there are failings in our governance or our anti-doping programme I will fix them”.

But Warner says Coe needs to restructure the IAAF in order for it to effectively tackle the problem.

“This cannot be a one-man crusade,” Warner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “He needs to ensure there is a bench around him at the IAAF who dramatically improve the operation.

“We all know, and he has already said, he needs to go out and hire a good chief executive.

“It needs more than that. He also possibly needs a chairman under him so he can take the lead of the elected council and be the ambassador for the sport and have full-time professional staff, possibly from outside sport, from elsewhere in business, who can get a grip on the organisation.” — BBC Sport