Athletics: East Germans Compensated for Systematic Doping

East German athletes who were given performance-enhancing drugs under a state-sponsored doping system are to be compensated. The agreement covers 167 athletes who will receive £6,000 each, the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB) said yesterday.

"We accept the moral responsibility," Thomas Bach, the DOSB president and a senior International Olympic Committee member, said. About 10,000 East German athletes were doped, some unknowingly, according to the Federal Agency for Civic Education. East Germany won 454 medals at Olympic summer games and 110 medals at winter games before re-unification in 1990 but many of its athletes have since suffered health problems, including cancer and still-born babies. "Money alone cannot offset their suffering," Michael Lehner, the doping victims association's representative, said.

The DOSB and the federal government will share the €1.54m (£1.03m) cost of the settlement, which has been signed by the victims and their lawyers and the DOSB. The federal government will finance two-thirds of the settlement with money from funds that had been set aside for cultural activities during last summer's football World Cup.

The victims had gone to court to demand compensation from German sports organisations, arguing that they had inherited the property and funds of former East German institutions. Sports organisations in the west had argued against being held responsible for the doping system of the former East Germany.

The Bulgarian expelled from the IOC after the BBC alleged he was corrupt in a programme that nearly wrecked London's chances of being awarded the 2012 Games was awarded compensation by a court in Sofia last night. Ivan Slavkov was given £5,000 following a civil case after he sued the Bulgarian government for illegal detention, misappropriation and the illegal possession of weapons.

The first two claims were dismissed but a court found in favour on the last. In 1990 a Bulgarian court tried Slavkov, also formerly the head of the Bulgarian football federation and a senior member of Uefa, over charges of illegal possession of two revolvers, three guns and ammunition, as well as for misappropriation of £5,000 in his role as head of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee.

A six-year trial relating to the charges from 1990 ended yesterday when a court ruled that Slavkov, the son-in-law of the former Communist leader Todor Zhivkov, should be compensated for the case involving illegal firearms because it was untrue. Slavkov was thrown out of the IOC following the Panorama programme, which was shown in July 2004, on the eve of the Athens Olympics, and which alleged he was willing to help London 2012 get votes from IOC members in exchange for money and favours.

London officials had to embark upon a major damage-limitation programme to convince IOC members they were not involved in the programme. Slavkov later threatened to sue the BBC over the programme but has yet to file any court action officially.