Zara Hyde Peters will not take up UK Athletics position

Zara Hyde Peters was due to start as UK Athletics new CEO at the start of December

Zara Hyde Peters will not take up a position as UK Athletics' new chief executive after allegations made about her husband came to light.

The Times alleges Mike Peters was allowed to continue coaching at a club where she was vice-chair despite being banned from teaching over an "inappropriate relationship" with a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

Hyde Peters was due to start her role with UK Athletics on 1 December but a review led to a decision to not go ahead with the appointment.

UK Athletics chair Chris Clark said in a statement: "Following recent press reports and significant media attention focused on Zara Hyde Peters, the UK Athletics Board convened a meeting this past Sunday 24 November and discussed the situation fully.

"Following the meeting I had time with Zara to review the situation and we have agreed together, that she will now not be taking up her position as CEO on 1 December."

Hyde Peters has also resigned from her role as a Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games board member and as the chair of its Athletes' Advisory Committee.

John Crabtree, chair of the Birmingham 2022 board, said it followed discussions over the past 48 hours, adding: "I would like to thank Zara for her contribution over the last year."

It comes after the Commonwealth Games Federation, the event's governing body, wrote to the Birmingham 2022 organising committee urging it to suspend her from those roles pending an investigation.

The report in the Times claimed that Peters was allowed to continue coaching at the Coventry Godiva Harriers between 2012 and 2017 despite Hyde Peters, a former Great Britain distance runner, knowing he had been permanently barred from teaching in October 2012.

According to The Times, Hyde Peters admitted her husband had coached after his teaching ban, but insisted that "he never coached athletes under the age of 18".

Peters was barred from teaching because of the inappropriate relationship between 2004 and 2005 while he worked as a PE teacher at Bilton School, Rugby. He was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct after being cleared of sexual misconduct.

BBC Sport has contacted Hyde Peters for a comment.

Analysis

BBC sports editor Dan Roan

Less than a year before the next Olympics, one of the UK's best publicly funded sports governing bodies lurches from one crisis to the next.

UKA was already under significant scrutiny over its judgement and handling of the Alberto Salazar scandal, and its close relationship with the disgraced coach and the now-closed Nike Oregon Project.

A 2015 review by the organisation cleared Sir Mo Farah - who is not accused of any wrongdoing - to continue working with Salazar despite allegations against his coach. In the wake of Salazar being banned by US Anti-Doping, the UKA Performance Director Neil Black stepped down following a disappointing World Championships.

And now the incoming chief executive has been axed from her £200,000 per year role just days before she was due to start.

All-powerful funding agency UK Sport will now be asked whether a financial penalty should be the consequence of such turmoil - UKA currently gets £27m in funding from them for the Tokyo cycle.

UKA's recruitment of Hyde Peters will also now come under scrutiny, as could chairman Chris Clark's backing of her appointment last week after the allegations surfaced, before reviewing the evidence.

In contrast, the Commonwealth Games Federation acted much more decisively, urging Birmingham 2022 to suspend her pending an investigation.