There's a reason the sports books in Las Vegas won't touch figure skating. It's still too crooked.

The world championships wrap up tonight in Washington, but it can't end soon enough for International Skating Union boss Ottavio Cinquanta.

In the past 13 months, his organization has been rocked by a judging scandal and the whiff of Russian mob involvement. Then came Tuesday, when a dozen or so coaches, judges and former Olympic champions got up and very loudly called for regime change.

Even Dick Button, whose strongest criticism of the sport is usually reserved for out-of-place sequins, got into the act.

"The ISU has put a clean sheet over dirty laundry," Button said.

It's important to mention that he has a dog in this fight. Along with Scott Hamilton, another former skater and current TV commentator, and veteran coach John Nicks, Button is a member of the newly formed World Skating Federation, which hopes to supplant the ISU as the governing body for the sport.

Even so, Cinquanta had it coming. On his watch, the credibility of a sport that was no stronger than a shoelace to begin with threatens to continue unraveling.

The principals in the figure skating fiasco at the Salt Lake City Games, suspended French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne and federation chief Didier Gailhaguet, could be back in business after the next Winter Olympics. Both are still threatening to name names. Still to be heard from is Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, the reputed Russian mobster who is accused of arranging the vote-swapping deal that caused an uproar in pairs skating.

Last summer, U.S. prosecutors made figure skating sound like "The Sopranos" on ice. Once they get their hands on Tokhtakhounov -- still awaiting extradition from Italy -- he might not have a choice about talking.

But if any of this was worrying Cinquanta this week, he wasn't about to let on. As befits a strongman at the head of a century-old sporting institution, he shrugged off questions about the emergence of a rival federation this way:

"I know nothing about it," Cinquanta said. "By name it is a federation. I have not yet seen evidence that it is a federation. I call it an initiative for the moment."

And for the moment, he can afford to.

The WSF doesn't have much money and it has even fewer backers with real power. Members have their own conflicts of interest to sort out; Button, for example, has long been a champion of the pro circuit and the WSF wants everybody -- pros included -- eligible for the Olympics.

But its timing couldn't be better. The ISU's biggest chunk of money each year is a check from ABC Sports for $22 million. The last one is scheduled for signing at the end of the 2003-04 season. If the new judging system the ISU rolled out in time for these world championships is any measure, Cinquanta stands to have even more enemies by then.

The old system of scoring was susceptible to politics, but at least it had some accountability. The nationalities of the judges were known and their scores were available for scrutiny. In fact, a post-event review of those marks eventually led referee Ron Pfenning to report Le Gougne to the ISU.

Under the new system, the referee won't have that information available for review. It will be stored on computer printouts seen only by a handful of people at the ISU. The review period extends over two years, and there are periodic reviews of judges' performances during that period. Action can be taken against any judges whose marks have been out of line at any time during the two-year period.

If those decisions were turned over to the crowd at these world championships, the howling likely would extend well past the women's final Saturday night.

The range of marks on several performances already has been wide enough to suggest that some judges couldn't be happier with their newly gained anonymity.

American Sasha Cohen's qualifying scores ran from 5.1 to 5.9, which elicited this response from the skater: "I was kind of like, 'Whoa."'

Asked about such discrepancies, Cinquanta said, "You have to ask the judges, not me. Ottavio Cinquanta is not guilty."

Not everybody is sure.

Jamie Sale, the female half of the Canadian pair awarded duplicate gold medals in Salt Lake City, has already taken the WSF's side. And it was hard to argue with something she said in a video appearance on behalf of the group.

"The system will never change if the same people who corrupted it are there."

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press.