Nike under scrutiny over stolen payments for Kenya's runners

Nairobi

WHEN a Chinese clothing company swooped in and offered to sponsor Kenya's famed runners, Nike panicked, Kenyan officials say.

"Can we talk about the situation?" a Nike executive wrote to a Kenyan official on hearing the news that the Kenyans wanted to end their deal with Nike. "We go back a long way."

What followed - show email exchanges, letters, bank records and invoices, provided by an ex-employee of Kenya's athletics federation - has led to a major scandal in Kenya, a country in the midst of its biggest war against corruption in years.

In a contract signed several years ago, Nike…