DRUG-BUSTING REFORMS

WADA board meeting to discuss setting up an independent drug testing authority

MONTREAL needs to be improved,” Rolland said.

The push for an independent testing authority is not to everyone’s taste however. Several powerful federations, notably world football’s governing body Fifa, have already indicated they want to be exempt from the proposed reforms.

“We respect the WADA and IOC proposals but they concern the smaller federations,” said Michel D’Hooghe, the chairman of Fifa’s medical committee.

Irrespective of those tensions, however, the IOC are sticking to their goal of having a reformed system in place by the time of next February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

“We intend to make the controls totally independent of the IOC,” IOC president Thomas Bach said.

This task will be entrusted to a new independent testing authority whose structure may be outlined at today’s WADA Board meeting.

According to a source with knowledge of the issue, the proposed new testing authority would be created as a foundation under the control of a five-member board.

Rolland meanwhile acknowledged the tensions when addressing the issue of how the new authority would be financed.

“The difficulty will be to find a business model that satisfies everyone,” he said.

Today’s meeting will begin with a keynote address by WADA’s director general Olivier Niggli, who is expected to give updates on a number of issues including the “set of recommendations endorsed by the council last November.”

Those include issues ranging from compliance and governance to early warning systems and the laboratory accreditation process. AFP

We intend to make the controls totally independent of the IOC.