WADA’s Tired Demands of Major League Baseball Again
By Evan Weiner
March 27, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- From the this is boring file, John Fahey, the President of the World Anti-Doping Agency, is demanding that Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association knuckle under to him and his merry band of urine collectors and apparently now blood test takers and get serious about cleansing the sport of "cheaters." Fahey wants Major League Baseball to start taking blood samples in addition to urine samples of individual players to see if they are using human growth hormone.
Apparently Fahey thinks that players should just give blood and is presuming that all the players are using HGH until proven otherwise. There is a presumption of guilt by the WADA guys and they are absolutely correct in their approach.
Just ask them.
Fahey and his group, who trample over individual rights in their quest to clean sports, say there is a valid blood test for HGH because a British rugby player tested, Terry Newton, positive after giving blood. The odd thing about Fahey blasting Major League Baseball is that International Olympic Committee delegates have exiled the sport to Elba; well maybe not Elba as Major League Baseball has moved on and started a global competition, the World Baseball Classic.
The Newton case was the first time a player in any athletic endeavor tested positive for HGH but a major question remains. Is the test reliable? At this point, WADA officials say yes but WADA is an arm of the International Olympic Committee, an organization that has been assailed by the former Majority Leader of the United States Senate George Mitchell for being corrupt. The same George Mitchell who issued the drug report on Major League Baseball.
Fahey is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Dick Pound, the Montreal lawyer, who was also on a cheater crusade. Apparently the Pounds and Faheys of the world and you can throw in the President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, want to rid the sports world of cheaters even though those cheaters are using illegal substances that could end up in arrests and maybe a conviction here or there.
Rogge tried to make that case to Italian authorities prior to the 2006 Turin Olympics.
WADA acts as if it is a sovereign state and one of the WADA rules is that all athletes be ready for a drug test when WADA wants to administer a drug test at any time or any place. A human rights violation is not troubling to the Pounds and Faheys of the world. Or Rogge either as he apparently looked the other way in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics about China’s human rights record.
Some athletic organizations have fought back against the 24/7 rule and the tactics seems more in line with the Geneva Convention treaties that govern the treatment of war prisoners than sports. The Belgium sports union, Sporta, challenged WADA's edict under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights that allows for privacy and the right to be free from unlawful searches. The International Federation of Professional Footballers is not very happy with WADA either.
The country of France doesn't seem too impressed with WADA either. A plan to increase taxes on television sports fees that would go to help fund WADA according to the magazine Cycleworld has been scrapped. French football team owners didn't think that they should be taxed to support anti-doping efforts.
WADA is not a state nor is the International Olympic Committee although the IOC for some inexplicable reason has the same United Nations observer rights as the Vatican, which is a sovereign state. WADA works with the cover of governments globally.
That is the most troubling part of the Rogge-Pound and now Fahey squawking. Governments have given these people legitimacy. The World Anti-Doping Agency gets funding from governments globally. WADA just cares about sports. It would be refreshing to see a Fahey, a former Australian Finance Minister, Rogge or Pound speak out on the drug problems on the US-Mexican border or the other drug problems in the world including poppy production in Afghanistan but they don’t utter a word. They just go after athletes. Of course Rogge and his IOC delegation (Pound was an IOC delegate) and Fahey make their livelihoods through international sports events with funding from American TV networks and American corporations paying a great deal of the freight.
Major League Baseball has been in the IOC/WADA cross hairs for a long time. The international sports organization was stung by Major League Baseball's refusal to interrupt the regular season and send MLB's best players to a meaningless two-week baseball tournament. The IOC will never officially admit a vendetta against Major League Baseball, that is too petty even for the IOC, but IOC delegates think they have gotten even with Baseball Commissioner Bid Selig and the former Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association Donald Fehr by throwing the game out of the Olympics starting with the London Games in 2012 and continuing with the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. In an unrelated matter, the IOC delegates also dismissed softball from the Olympic sports roster beginning in 2012 but the thought is that the IOC by dropping women’s softball is somehow hurting Major League Baseball.
The unofficial thinking is that the IOC was punishing baseball for not toeing the line for not sending players to their Olympics and also not adopting the WADA rules by more than 130 governments and numerous sports organizations globally.
Fahey and his ilk cannot be too happy that the United States and Canadian law enforcement officials are investigating Dr. Anthony Galea who is at the center of a drug smuggling case involving human growth hormones. Dr. Galea has some big named clients including Golf's Tiger Woods and New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. The Fahey/Rogge view of HGH is slightly different than that of real governments. It is illegal to possess the stuff unless administered by a physician. The Fahey/Rogge doctrine is more in the lines of the use of HGH is cheating and that a simple suspension of a couple of years is better than jail time.
Since steroids and HGH possession is illegal in the United States without a doctor's consent, law enforcement officials, whether it is the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Drug Enforcement Administration, should be the lead investigators not some bunch of people like Fahey, Rogge and Pound who think they have some quasi-governmental authority.
At the end of the day, if the big money behind sports wanted to clean up the industry and that is a big if, there are very simple steps that can be taken. Turn off the money faucet that keeps big time sports going in the United States. Family values corporations like Disney (ESPN) or another guy who peddles high morals, Rupert Murdoch (FOX), could just stop buying television rights to Major League Baseball and other sports, corporations could say no to buying big ticket items like club seats and luxury boxes, municipalities would make teams pay property taxes and cut far better leases with teams. But that doesn't happen.
Which begs the question. Is Fahey truly interested in assuring the integrity of a sports event or is he, Rogge and all the other sports moralists that are pushing evasive drug testing by taking blood and trampling on athletes' rights just to appease some fans who scream on talk radio, although most don't care about athletes using performance enhancing drugs, and protect their high paying jobs and global status by jumping up and down and yelling about the need for Major League Baseball players giving blood because it is some sort of privilege to be an athlete?
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label WADA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WADA. Show all posts
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Sunday, November 1, 2009
WADA’s Fahey: Agassi and the ATP Should be Accountable for Something That Happened in 1997
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7566
WADA’s Fahey: Agassi and the ATP Should be Accountable for Something That Happened in 1997
By Evan Weiner
November 1, 2009
8:30 PM EST
(New York, N. Y.) – Andre Agassi’s revelation that he used crystal meth in 1997 has attracted the attention of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a group that was formed in 1999 in an effort to get rid of drugs in the sports world. It is not unusual for the head of WADA to run his mouth and John Fahey is certainly following in the tradition of the former head Dick Pound in barking.
In November 2005, Pound made a baseless accusation of doping in hockey. Pound estimated that a third of the players in the National Hockey League were taking enhancers. Only a handful of players have ever been suspended for drug usage
Of course there is nothing Fahey can do to Agassi but that doesn’t mean Fahey and WADA cannot complain. Agassi’s crystal meth usage took place 12 years ago and even though he tested positive for using a banned substance, a recreational drug as opposed to a performance-enhancing drug, the Association of Tennis Professionals bought his story that he drank something that was provided to him by his assistant Slim who “spiked” his drink.
Agassi was cleared of any wrong doing and resumed his career.
But WADA doesn’t want the story to end when Agassi’s autobiography hits the stands in this month. WADA would love to go after Agassi because WADA thinks it is a law enforcement agency. Pound, Fahey and others want to weed out the bad guys, the steroids, guys, the meth guys, the cocaine users and that is all well and good, but WADA is not a law enforcement group.
WADA also only has elite athletes in mind. The meth user on the street is of no concern to Fahey or Pound. They don’t sell tickets to athletic events or are compelling enough to fetch the IOC billions from American TV money and corporate sponsors. The drugged out entertainer, whether it is an actor, comedic or singer, is also of no concern to the group. They don’t sell tickets to athletic events or are compelling enough to fetch billions from American TV money and corporate sponsors.
Athletes are an elite group of people and that makes them different in the eyes of say WADA or the International Olympic Committee, a pair of non-government agencies who think they are in charge of enforcing some sort of justice in the elite athlete doping world. The International Olympics Committee President Jacques Rogge told Italian officials prior to the 2006 Turin Winter Games that the IOC, not Italian law enforcement officials should police the Olympic Village because the athletes were not really breaking laws by using banned substances rather they were cheating if they were taking illegal performance enhancing drugs and that the IOC should hand out punishment not Italian authorities for possessing illegal substances. Rogge and his minions felt that suspending an athlete for two years from competition was more meaningful than having a jail term.
It is the IOC’s view of the world. Cheating by an elite athlete is more of an offense than law breaking.
The IOC demands governments genuflect in front of them. Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama and other world leaders have to come to IOC functions and be seen or risk not getting a chance at winning a sure money loser for taxpayers, the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee created WADA and that group provided the agency with funding. But somehow this independent agency gained funding from countries around the world beginning in 2002.
In 2003, Pound started throwing barbs at United States George W. Bush and suggested that sporting events should not be held in America because United States pro leagues were not handing out stiff enough penalties to athletes caught using banned substances and also that the Bush Administration was rather slow in sending money to the anti-doping agency.
Eventually the United States and other countries mailed their checks with payments to Pound and his gang. The Bush Administration cut what American taxpayers gave to WADA by $200,000 reducing the commitment to $800,000.
Needless to say that did not please Pound.
Pound wanted to turn the United States into a sports “pariah.”
Of course had that happened, WADA and the Olympics movement would be out of business as the International Olympic Committee lives on the dime of the American broadcast network, General Electric’s NBCUniversal has endowed Rogge’s group with billions of dollars.
It is highly unlikely that Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer would have been handing Rogge money if Rogge reduced the United States into a pariah sports state.
The IOC also has not opened negotiations for the American TV rights for the 2014 Sochi and 2016 Rio games as of yet because of the American economic collapse. The IOC figures if it waits until 2010, they might be in a better negotiating climate but Rupert Murdoch has already ruled out that his American TV network FOX will bid on the Games, NBCUniversal may be sold, Disney and ESPN may go after the rights but will the huge sums of money be available? If the answer is no that, not Mark McGwire returning to baseball to be a hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, will turn America into a sports “pariah.”
Strangely enough, WADA does concede it has no power even if Pound and Fahey make demands.
The WADA website points out that “Governments have many responsibilities in the fight against doping in sport. They also have powers that sport organizations do not have.
“For example, governments can facilitate doping controls and support national testing programs: encourage the establishment of ‘best practice’ in the labeling, marketing and distribution of productions that might contain prohibited substances, withhold financial support from those who engage in or support doping, take measures against the manufacturing and trafficking of doping substances: encourage the establishment of codes of conduct for professions relating to sport and anti-doping and fund anti-doping education and research.”
WADA though has a major limitation – “Many governments cannot be legally bound by a non-governmental document such as the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). Accordingly, governments prepared the Copenhagen Declaration on Anti-Doping in Sport, a political document through which they signalled their intention to formally recognize and implement the Code through an international treaty. The Copenhagen Declaration was finalized in 2003.”
WADA is not a law enforcement agency and cannot be a law enforcement agency or can it?
WADA tramples on human rights by demanding athletes be available seven days a week and giving the agency an hour so they can do a drug test. This has not sat well with Belgium’s Sporta, a sports union, which claims that WADA has violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human rights that includes “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence” and “There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
Other groups that have opposed include the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels, a group of 42 football (soccer) players associations around the globe, the Australian Cricketers Association, the international football (soccer) governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the European governing body for football (soccer), Union of European Football Associations, and a panel of the European Union which said WADA’s “whereabouts” rule might violate privacy rules.
Rogge and his cronies suspect that every athlete is a possible drug user and that invasion of privacy is not big deal.
Elite athletes are treated differently. Privacy invasion is no big deal. Perhaps Madrid lost race to land the 2016 Olympics because they have gone soft on the war on drugs in sports. Any elite athlete living in Spain doesn’t have to be bothered by WADA’s troops that come knocking on the door between 11 PM and 8 AM looking for a urine sample and there is nothing WADA can do.
It is the law in Spain.
It is no surprise that WADA wants to go after Agassi and the Association of Tennis Professions even though the group has nothing to do with what happened in 1997. That is what WADA does best, perhaps it is time that countries take the matter of doping in their own hands and let law enforcement not a bunch of old jocks and jock sniffers handle criminal activities. After all, taking an illegal substance, whether it is a steroid (which is not illegally in every country in the world and that causes another ethical problem for the IOC/WADA) or crystal meth, should be handled by law enformance not Jacques Rogge or John Fahey.
eweiner@mcn.tv
WADA’s Fahey: Agassi and the ATP Should be Accountable for Something That Happened in 1997
By Evan Weiner
November 1, 2009
8:30 PM EST
(New York, N. Y.) – Andre Agassi’s revelation that he used crystal meth in 1997 has attracted the attention of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a group that was formed in 1999 in an effort to get rid of drugs in the sports world. It is not unusual for the head of WADA to run his mouth and John Fahey is certainly following in the tradition of the former head Dick Pound in barking.
In November 2005, Pound made a baseless accusation of doping in hockey. Pound estimated that a third of the players in the National Hockey League were taking enhancers. Only a handful of players have ever been suspended for drug usage
Of course there is nothing Fahey can do to Agassi but that doesn’t mean Fahey and WADA cannot complain. Agassi’s crystal meth usage took place 12 years ago and even though he tested positive for using a banned substance, a recreational drug as opposed to a performance-enhancing drug, the Association of Tennis Professionals bought his story that he drank something that was provided to him by his assistant Slim who “spiked” his drink.
Agassi was cleared of any wrong doing and resumed his career.
But WADA doesn’t want the story to end when Agassi’s autobiography hits the stands in this month. WADA would love to go after Agassi because WADA thinks it is a law enforcement agency. Pound, Fahey and others want to weed out the bad guys, the steroids, guys, the meth guys, the cocaine users and that is all well and good, but WADA is not a law enforcement group.
WADA also only has elite athletes in mind. The meth user on the street is of no concern to Fahey or Pound. They don’t sell tickets to athletic events or are compelling enough to fetch the IOC billions from American TV money and corporate sponsors. The drugged out entertainer, whether it is an actor, comedic or singer, is also of no concern to the group. They don’t sell tickets to athletic events or are compelling enough to fetch billions from American TV money and corporate sponsors.
Athletes are an elite group of people and that makes them different in the eyes of say WADA or the International Olympic Committee, a pair of non-government agencies who think they are in charge of enforcing some sort of justice in the elite athlete doping world. The International Olympics Committee President Jacques Rogge told Italian officials prior to the 2006 Turin Winter Games that the IOC, not Italian law enforcement officials should police the Olympic Village because the athletes were not really breaking laws by using banned substances rather they were cheating if they were taking illegal performance enhancing drugs and that the IOC should hand out punishment not Italian authorities for possessing illegal substances. Rogge and his minions felt that suspending an athlete for two years from competition was more meaningful than having a jail term.
It is the IOC’s view of the world. Cheating by an elite athlete is more of an offense than law breaking.
The IOC demands governments genuflect in front of them. Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama and other world leaders have to come to IOC functions and be seen or risk not getting a chance at winning a sure money loser for taxpayers, the Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee created WADA and that group provided the agency with funding. But somehow this independent agency gained funding from countries around the world beginning in 2002.
In 2003, Pound started throwing barbs at United States George W. Bush and suggested that sporting events should not be held in America because United States pro leagues were not handing out stiff enough penalties to athletes caught using banned substances and also that the Bush Administration was rather slow in sending money to the anti-doping agency.
Eventually the United States and other countries mailed their checks with payments to Pound and his gang. The Bush Administration cut what American taxpayers gave to WADA by $200,000 reducing the commitment to $800,000.
Needless to say that did not please Pound.
Pound wanted to turn the United States into a sports “pariah.”
Of course had that happened, WADA and the Olympics movement would be out of business as the International Olympic Committee lives on the dime of the American broadcast network, General Electric’s NBCUniversal has endowed Rogge’s group with billions of dollars.
It is highly unlikely that Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer would have been handing Rogge money if Rogge reduced the United States into a pariah sports state.
The IOC also has not opened negotiations for the American TV rights for the 2014 Sochi and 2016 Rio games as of yet because of the American economic collapse. The IOC figures if it waits until 2010, they might be in a better negotiating climate but Rupert Murdoch has already ruled out that his American TV network FOX will bid on the Games, NBCUniversal may be sold, Disney and ESPN may go after the rights but will the huge sums of money be available? If the answer is no that, not Mark McGwire returning to baseball to be a hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, will turn America into a sports “pariah.”
Strangely enough, WADA does concede it has no power even if Pound and Fahey make demands.
The WADA website points out that “Governments have many responsibilities in the fight against doping in sport. They also have powers that sport organizations do not have.
“For example, governments can facilitate doping controls and support national testing programs: encourage the establishment of ‘best practice’ in the labeling, marketing and distribution of productions that might contain prohibited substances, withhold financial support from those who engage in or support doping, take measures against the manufacturing and trafficking of doping substances: encourage the establishment of codes of conduct for professions relating to sport and anti-doping and fund anti-doping education and research.”
WADA though has a major limitation – “Many governments cannot be legally bound by a non-governmental document such as the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). Accordingly, governments prepared the Copenhagen Declaration on Anti-Doping in Sport, a political document through which they signalled their intention to formally recognize and implement the Code through an international treaty. The Copenhagen Declaration was finalized in 2003.”
WADA is not a law enforcement agency and cannot be a law enforcement agency or can it?
WADA tramples on human rights by demanding athletes be available seven days a week and giving the agency an hour so they can do a drug test. This has not sat well with Belgium’s Sporta, a sports union, which claims that WADA has violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human rights that includes “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence” and “There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
Other groups that have opposed include the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels, a group of 42 football (soccer) players associations around the globe, the Australian Cricketers Association, the international football (soccer) governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the European governing body for football (soccer), Union of European Football Associations, and a panel of the European Union which said WADA’s “whereabouts” rule might violate privacy rules.
Rogge and his cronies suspect that every athlete is a possible drug user and that invasion of privacy is not big deal.
Elite athletes are treated differently. Privacy invasion is no big deal. Perhaps Madrid lost race to land the 2016 Olympics because they have gone soft on the war on drugs in sports. Any elite athlete living in Spain doesn’t have to be bothered by WADA’s troops that come knocking on the door between 11 PM and 8 AM looking for a urine sample and there is nothing WADA can do.
It is the law in Spain.
It is no surprise that WADA wants to go after Agassi and the Association of Tennis Professions even though the group has nothing to do with what happened in 1997. That is what WADA does best, perhaps it is time that countries take the matter of doping in their own hands and let law enforcement not a bunch of old jocks and jock sniffers handle criminal activities. After all, taking an illegal substance, whether it is a steroid (which is not illegally in every country in the world and that causes another ethical problem for the IOC/WADA) or crystal meth, should be handled by law enformance not Jacques Rogge or John Fahey.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Drug testing and privacy issues cloud Soccer's Olympics future
http://www.examiner.com/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2009m3d27-Drug-testing-and-privacy-issues-cloud-Soccers-Olympics-future
Evan Weiner
Business of Sports Examiner
Drug testing and privacy issues cloud Soccer's Olympics future
March 27, 2:08 PM
The merry band of men who run the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) are not a happy group. The World Anti-Doping Agency, a group that thinks it is always right and has seized the moral high ground in the war on the usage of performance enhancing drugs in sports, has come up with a new proposal to clean up cheating in football or as it is called in the United States, soccer.
WADA wants to football federations to keep track of players 365 days a year, 24 hours a day so they can administer drug tests. WADA has a new sheriff in town, John Fahey who is seemingly not very happy that two football organizations have no intention of using Kremlin-like tactics to spy on players. WADA put out an angry statement that is supposed to show who is boss, after all, WADA thinks it has more juice than any police department or government.
“WADA was surprised and concerned to read the statement issued on March 24 by the world and European football governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, in relation to universally harmonized whereabouts requirements that took effect on January 1, 2009.
Under the 2009 International Standard for Testing, which was unanimously approved in May 2008 by WADA’s Executive Committee (including representatives of International Sports Federations), the limited number of top elite athletes included in an International Federation or National Anti-Doping Organization registered testing pool must indicate one hour a day during which they can be tested at a specified location. The new Standard also provides team sports with the opportunity of submitting the whereabouts of their relevant athletes on a collective basis as part of team activities. This specific point was the result of requests from and extensive consultation with team sports, including FIFA, and was specifically made to accommodate team sports.
Under the Standard, the one-hour time-slot indicated by the athlete or his/her team can include any location, including training grounds. But the opportunity for anti-doping organizations to test athletes is not limited to the chosen one-hour time-slot and location.
“One of the key principles of efficient doping control is the surprise effect and the possibility to test an athlete without advance notice on a 365 day basis,” said WADA’s President John Fahey. “Alleging, as FIFA and UEFA do, that testing should only take place at training grounds and not during holiday periods, ignores the reality of doping in sport. Experience has demonstrated that athletes who cheat seize every opportunity to do so and dope when they believe they won’t be tested. Some substances and methods disappear quickly from the body while keeping their performance-enhancing effects. Anti-doping organizations must therefore be able to test athletes at all times in an intelligent fashion. WADA stakeholders have recognized this reality, and the feedback we have received from the overwhelming majority of other sports, but also from athletes and all those who support doping-free sport, strongly contradicts FIFA’s and UEFA’s stance.”
FIFA and the UFEA have told WADA to get lost and have brought up the issue of privacy rights, something that WADA doesn’t believe is valid for elite athletes. The International Olympic Committee, a cheerful group of people who also believes it is above the law as IOC President Jacques Rogge attempted to prove in 2006 when he suggested to Italian authorities that the IOC take control of the Turin Olympic Village drug enforcement laws because taking illegal performance enhancing drugs really wasn’t breaking the law, rather it is just cheating, is backing up WADA in this case fully, to the point where the IOC might want to get rid of soccer in the Summer Games.
WADA put out a statement on the wada-ama.org site with a not so veiled threat.
“At a meeting between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board and the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) held on March 25 in Denver as part of the Sportaccord Convention, the IOC President, Jacques Rogge, reiterated his strong support to the fight against doping and WADA’s work. He also urged all sports to comply with the World Anti-Doping Code.
The Olympic Charter provides that only sports that comply with the Code can be part of the program of the Olympic Games.”
FIFA President Seth Blatter thinks WADA’s is conducting a “witch hunt.” Of course, this is nothing new for WADA connected people. When the Montreal lawyer Richard Pound was running the group he had a laundry list of complaints which included his accusation that one third of the players in the National Hockey League were using illegal performance enhancers and going after Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.
WADA and the IOC are partners in taking on the drug culture and apparently are willing to do their testing without search warrants at any time. The football people are correct, test the players at the facilities. The neither WADA or the IOC should have the right to knock on someone’s door at 3AM and demanding a test. If they suspect a player is taking illegal substances, get a search warrant from the rightful authorities, law enforcement agencies.
The IOC runs roughshod over governments in terms of the economic damage caused by IOC demands if a city wants to hold an Olympics. The economic carnage in Montreal, Sydney and Athens was passed onto taxpayers. Because the IOC got mad at Major League Baseball for not sending stars to the Summer Olympics, they started complaining to people like Arizona Senator John McCain about MLB’s lax drug testing policies. Somehow the steroids issue made it into President George W. Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address and by 2005 Congress was wasting time on steroids use in baseball. The IOC basically told United States officials New York and other American cities would not get the Olympics unless American sports leagues adhered to the IOC drug testing standards.
The IOC actually did New York a favor. New York City and New York State are not on the hook for the billions of dollars to build facilities for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The IOC may be in for a rude surprise if it pushes football or soccer. FIFA doesn’t need to be in the Olympics. The World Cup is a bigger sports event that is bigger than the IOC’s every four year summer sports orgy. The football people value privacy, something the neither IOC nor WADA officials care about.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Evan Weiner
Business of Sports Examiner
Drug testing and privacy issues cloud Soccer's Olympics future
March 27, 2:08 PM
The merry band of men who run the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) are not a happy group. The World Anti-Doping Agency, a group that thinks it is always right and has seized the moral high ground in the war on the usage of performance enhancing drugs in sports, has come up with a new proposal to clean up cheating in football or as it is called in the United States, soccer.
WADA wants to football federations to keep track of players 365 days a year, 24 hours a day so they can administer drug tests. WADA has a new sheriff in town, John Fahey who is seemingly not very happy that two football organizations have no intention of using Kremlin-like tactics to spy on players. WADA put out an angry statement that is supposed to show who is boss, after all, WADA thinks it has more juice than any police department or government.
“WADA was surprised and concerned to read the statement issued on March 24 by the world and European football governing bodies, FIFA and UEFA, in relation to universally harmonized whereabouts requirements that took effect on January 1, 2009.
Under the 2009 International Standard for Testing, which was unanimously approved in May 2008 by WADA’s Executive Committee (including representatives of International Sports Federations), the limited number of top elite athletes included in an International Federation or National Anti-Doping Organization registered testing pool must indicate one hour a day during which they can be tested at a specified location. The new Standard also provides team sports with the opportunity of submitting the whereabouts of their relevant athletes on a collective basis as part of team activities. This specific point was the result of requests from and extensive consultation with team sports, including FIFA, and was specifically made to accommodate team sports.
Under the Standard, the one-hour time-slot indicated by the athlete or his/her team can include any location, including training grounds. But the opportunity for anti-doping organizations to test athletes is not limited to the chosen one-hour time-slot and location.
“One of the key principles of efficient doping control is the surprise effect and the possibility to test an athlete without advance notice on a 365 day basis,” said WADA’s President John Fahey. “Alleging, as FIFA and UEFA do, that testing should only take place at training grounds and not during holiday periods, ignores the reality of doping in sport. Experience has demonstrated that athletes who cheat seize every opportunity to do so and dope when they believe they won’t be tested. Some substances and methods disappear quickly from the body while keeping their performance-enhancing effects. Anti-doping organizations must therefore be able to test athletes at all times in an intelligent fashion. WADA stakeholders have recognized this reality, and the feedback we have received from the overwhelming majority of other sports, but also from athletes and all those who support doping-free sport, strongly contradicts FIFA’s and UEFA’s stance.”
FIFA and the UFEA have told WADA to get lost and have brought up the issue of privacy rights, something that WADA doesn’t believe is valid for elite athletes. The International Olympic Committee, a cheerful group of people who also believes it is above the law as IOC President Jacques Rogge attempted to prove in 2006 when he suggested to Italian authorities that the IOC take control of the Turin Olympic Village drug enforcement laws because taking illegal performance enhancing drugs really wasn’t breaking the law, rather it is just cheating, is backing up WADA in this case fully, to the point where the IOC might want to get rid of soccer in the Summer Games.
WADA put out a statement on the wada-ama.org site with a not so veiled threat.
“At a meeting between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board and the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) held on March 25 in Denver as part of the Sportaccord Convention, the IOC President, Jacques Rogge, reiterated his strong support to the fight against doping and WADA’s work. He also urged all sports to comply with the World Anti-Doping Code.
The Olympic Charter provides that only sports that comply with the Code can be part of the program of the Olympic Games.”
FIFA President Seth Blatter thinks WADA’s is conducting a “witch hunt.” Of course, this is nothing new for WADA connected people. When the Montreal lawyer Richard Pound was running the group he had a laundry list of complaints which included his accusation that one third of the players in the National Hockey League were using illegal performance enhancers and going after Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.
WADA and the IOC are partners in taking on the drug culture and apparently are willing to do their testing without search warrants at any time. The football people are correct, test the players at the facilities. The neither WADA or the IOC should have the right to knock on someone’s door at 3AM and demanding a test. If they suspect a player is taking illegal substances, get a search warrant from the rightful authorities, law enforcement agencies.
The IOC runs roughshod over governments in terms of the economic damage caused by IOC demands if a city wants to hold an Olympics. The economic carnage in Montreal, Sydney and Athens was passed onto taxpayers. Because the IOC got mad at Major League Baseball for not sending stars to the Summer Olympics, they started complaining to people like Arizona Senator John McCain about MLB’s lax drug testing policies. Somehow the steroids issue made it into President George W. Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address and by 2005 Congress was wasting time on steroids use in baseball. The IOC basically told United States officials New York and other American cities would not get the Olympics unless American sports leagues adhered to the IOC drug testing standards.
The IOC actually did New York a favor. New York City and New York State are not on the hook for the billions of dollars to build facilities for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The IOC may be in for a rude surprise if it pushes football or soccer. FIFA doesn’t need to be in the Olympics. The World Cup is a bigger sports event that is bigger than the IOC’s every four year summer sports orgy. The football people value privacy, something the neither IOC nor WADA officials care about.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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