An article in Thursday’s Fairfax press reported of WADA again modifying their anti-doping protocol.
Amongst the amendments is this key section are:
“Another big change is a rule that allows for more flexible sanctions – up to four years for first-time cheaters who commit particularly bad offences, but also more leeway for athletes who get caught on technicalities or use banned substances that aren’t meant to enhance performance. The current standard for first-time offenders is a two-year ban whatever the violation.”
and further:
“There are also new guidelines on therapeutic-use exemptions, which caused some confusion leading up to Beijing – most notably among those who used asthma medicine.”
There is certainly a great level of ‘flexibility’ to operate more on a case-by-case approach.
For several years, FIFA was at loggerheads with WADA over adopting lock, stock and barrel the entirety of the WADA program. The WADA testing program is designed mainly for the Olympic sports, and FIFA ran the risk of having Association Football dropped from the 2004 Olympics.
In May 2004, FIFA and WADA agreed on an “opt out clause” that allowed the Olympic tournament to proceed. It was still a couple of years before FIFA signed on, rather than formally accepted, the WADA protocol.
And even then, with “strings attached.”
One of the major sticking points was what has just been amended now for the 2009 conditions.
There was a time in Australia where the AFL were vilified for not immediately signing up to WADA. This didn’t mean the AFL was against anti-doping drugs testing. The AFL had adopted anti-doping measures back in 1990, and had – at the time – recently adopted its own illicit out of competition policy in addition to match day testing.
The WADA program was seen, and not unreasonably so, as inflexible and overly complicated and, as a result, overly costly too.
At the time, the Howard Government played politics and attacked the AFL. Sadly in Melbourne, the local media lapped it up.
Perhaps ignorance resulted in not registering the significance of the FFA comment when responding when quizzed that they were ‘in line with FIFA’ regarding drugs and WADA, as this actually meant that the FFA were also not technically WADA compliant.
It’s nice then to see that the WADA protocol is becoming a little more “real world.”
But, as illustrated below, the IOC and WADA still have a way to go to get the Olympic sports house in order anyway.
“A report issued this year by independent observers said 102 of 205 countries at the Beijing Olympics failed to tell organisers where their athletes were so they could be tested outside of competition. It was one of the most glaring failures of the anti-doping system, according to the report.”
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