It's not the debunked claims. As someone that did compete in sports in high school (albeit poorly), the story does check out. Sports organisations are underfunded and end up becoming circular/annulation like organisations in which athletes parents, loved ones, family, etc get involved and take up senior positions. I've seen it happen before.

Even outside of my personal experiences, the stories about athletes having one of their parents as a head coach are pretty infamous, or just famous, depending on how good the athlete is. I don't think anyone cares that Armand Duplantis' coach is his dad for example, he's the world record holder. However, you could argue that when this happens in more "subjective" sports, that there is a high potential for cheating, especially in organisational positions outside of coaching. There's a strong argument there.