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≡ PIVOT POINT ≡
The World Anti-Doping Agency Foundation Board met on Thursday in Riyadh (KSA) and adopted two different versions of a budget for 2025:
“The Board approved two versions of the 2025 WADA Budget. The first version is the full budget that was endorsed by the Finance and Administration (F&A) Committee in June and includes the 2025 contribution from the Government of the Russian Federation.
“Recognizing that WADA did not receive its contribution in 2023, the second version excludes the 2025 Russian contribution. The first version of the budget is USD 57.5 million from all sources of funding while the amount without the Russian dues will be USD 54.7 million (USD 1.4 million from Russia combined with the match payment that comes from the Sport Movement, leading to a potential shortfall of USD 2.8 million).
“WADA Management will initially work with the reduced budget for the coming year but will retain the full budget as a secondary plan. This will allow WADA to be more flexible and react strategically and operationally in the event that the contribution levels improve. Whenever a government does not successfully pay its contribution, WADA is forced to consider austerity measures that impact all its activities, inevitably affecting all stakeholders, including athletes and Anti-Doping Organizations (ADOs).”
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency and the Russian sports ministry have said they want to pay the amounts due, but under financial sanctions due to the war against Ukraine, have had difficulty in sending funds out of the country (and to WADA).
In the same meeting, the question of payment by the United States was also covered:
“The ExCo and Board also discussed the potential fallout should the United States Government decide to voluntarily withhold its annual contribution to WADA for 2024, as has been suggested.”
WADA and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency have been in a harsh, unending war of words since April, when the German ARD channel and The New York Times reported the January 2021 mass doping incident with 23 Chinese swimmers, with WADA accepting the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency’s finding of no sanctions due to food contamination.
The anti-doping community has been in turmoil ever since, with USADA leading the charge against WADA, pointing to a lack of application of mandatory provisional suspensions and other procedures which it insists should have been followed.
Some of these swimmers won medals at the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021 and at this summer’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Moreover, WADA and the U.S. Office of National of Drug Control Policy – the department which pays the WADA dues – were in conflict during the first Trump Administration in 2021 over the participation of U.S. representatives relative to the amount of dues paid. That issue was settled, but the Office of National Drug Control Policy is again involved in discussions with WADA over its dues, in view of the 2021 Chinese doping incident.
The 2023 dues from the U.S. of $3.4 million was paid last August. The 2024 amount was reported as $3,624,983.
On 30 July, the “Restoring Confidence in the World Anti-Doping Agency Act of 2024” was introduced in both houses of the U.S. Congress, “to permanently provide the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) the authority to withhold up to the full amount of membership dues to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) if the organization fails to operate as a fair and independent actor to ensure athletes are competing in drug-free Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
The bill (H.R. 9220 and S. 4839) were referred to committees, but have not moved since introduction.
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The WADA Board also approved the WADA strategic plan for 2025-29 (not yet published) and placed Spain on the compliance “watchlist,” with four months to “correct outstanding non-conformities”:
“The non-conformities in this case come from two sources, namely a review of the NADO’s anti-doping program that identified some critical non-conformities in testing, and a review of a newly adopted government decree, which had not been provided to WADA for review prior to coming into force and which was found not to be compatible with the Code.”
Media reports in Spain have pointed to multiple testing issues with the national anti-doping organizations, known as CELAD.
The next meeting of the Executive Committee is scheduled for 27 March 2025.
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