International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) vice-president Sebastian Coe said yesterday that if the current doping allegations in athletics are true then it will be a scandal on a par with those which erupted around Ben Johnson and Marion Jones’s positive drugs tests.

An investigation is to begin into allegations of a cover-up of systematic doping in Russia, with a number of leading IAAF officials stepping down while that takes place.

There are also claims that a list exists which names 150 athletes with suspicious blood results from 2006 to 2008, with three Britons — one high-profile — said to be on it. It is alleged the IAAF did not investigate those on the list.

All the allegations have come from a series of programmes made by German television station ARD and, if proven, they would have serious ramifications for the sport.

“How do I benchmark this? In the 40 or so years in athletics, there have been big moments. Ben Johnson in 1988, Marion Jones, this is up there and nobody is remotely suggesting these allegations are not serious,” Coe said.

Johnson failed a doping test after winning Olympic 100 metres gold in Seoul in 1988, while US citizen Jones was stripped of five Olympic titles for doping breaches.

When asked if this case could be of that magnitude, Coe added: “If this is provable, of course it is.”

Coe wants ARD and its journalist Hajo Seppelt to give him any more information there is, including the list of names which he has suggested may be far from official.

“It’s been described as a bad week for athletics — I would go further. It’s been a ghastly week.

“None of us should hide or shy away from that. We have to bring this tawdry, sorry episode and any of those allegations to a close as quickly as we can,” he said.

“I don’t know about the existence of this list, it only got mentioned on German television. The simple answer is I don’t know, the IAAF does not know, what this list contains and whether it is a list that has any veracity at all.