US withholds World Anti-Doping Agency dues; Calls for reforms to the World Anti-Doping Agency | Sports news

The move follows WADA’s controversial handling of positive doping tests by Chinese swimmers who were later allowed to compete.

The United States has withheld $3.6 million in payments to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for failing to conduct an independent audit of operations, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said.

Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, said Wednesday that his group “fully supports this decision” by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy “as the only right choice to protect athletes’ rights, accountability, and fair competition.”

The US government owes a total of $3.625 million, and the agency’s total operating budget for 2025 is $57.5 million, WADA said.

The move to freeze WADA dues for 2024 comes on the heels of WADA Controversial dealing Of the positive doping tests by 23 Chinese swimmers who were later cleared to compete.

“Unfortunately, WADA’s current leaders have left the United States no other choice after failing to meet many very reasonable requests, such as conducting an independent audit of WADA’s operations, to achieve the transparency and accountability needed to ensure that WADA is fit for purpose to protect athletes,” Tygart said.

“Because WADA has failed to uniformly apply applicable global rules to protect the integrity of competition and the rights of athletes to fairness, significant reform must take place at WADA to ensure this does not happen again.”

In a statement, the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed the non-payment and indicated that the move would result in the removal of US representatives from its 2025 Executive Board.

“WADA confirms that it has not received the agreed contribution to the agency’s 2024 budget from the United States government by the December 31, 2024 deadline,” the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said.

“Under Article 6.6 of the WADA Statutes, representatives of the General Body from any country that has not paid its dues are not eligible to join the Foundation Board or Executive Committee. Therefore, on January 1 of each year, any member of the Foundation Board or Executive Committee shall lose Who represents a country whose annual contribution for the previous year did not automatically pay his seat.

An investigator appointed by the World Anti-Doping Agency said in July that WADA had not mishandled the Chinese swimmers’ case and confirmed those findings in September.

The United States has been the largest government to pay WADA’s budget since the agency began in 2000, Tygart said, noting that the authority to withhold payment to the World Anti-Doping Agency was created by President Donald Trump in cooperation with the US Congress.

This came in the wake of the Russian state-sponsored doping scheme surrounding the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

“As a result of WADA’s failure during this sad saga that ultimately saw Russia steal hundreds of athletes from the United States and other countries at the highest levels of competition, Congress passed the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, which President Trump signed into law in 2020.” said Tygart.

This prompted legislation allowing the US government to withhold payments to the World Anti-Doping Agency if it “does not act in a fair, effective and transparent manner,” Tygart said.

Tygart said failure to pay dues would have no impact on American athletes or their right to compete in events around the world.

“Non-payment will have no impact on the current U.S. anti-doping program and USADA will continue to aggressively enforce its WADA Code program so that the rights of all U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes are protected,” Tygart said.

“We need a strong, independent WADA and we will continue to work with all stakeholders in the United States and internationally to ensure the global system delivers on the promise of clean sport for the world’s athletes.”

Tygart also highlighted major events coming to the United States in the near future, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

“Now is the time to get WADA right to ensure that these competitions on American soil are clean, safe and fair competition that we can all believe in and trust,” Tegart said.