Mar 17, 2016 The world sport’s anti-doping agency recently expressed the need for greater funding to help root out doping.
Speaking to this effect, the president of the World Anti-doping Agency Craig Reedie said the agency’s basic annual budget was around 27 million dollars, which is less than some individual sportsmen earn in a year.
Speaking on the sidelines of a WADA conference, Reedie said:
“I think we have to say to very successful commercial companies, for example the pharmaceutical companies with whom we work very closely, you know, there is a real interest here for you and for us in clean sport and they are big donors in a charitable sense,”
He also added that WADA was understaffed and had an IT system that was 10 years out of date.
“It’s becoming quite apparent that as greater pressures appear, we simply need to find other sources of revenue, it’s possible to get evidence that shows that one athlete can earn more in one year than the whole of the WADA budget which I think is a reasonably interesting comparison,”
Echoing Reedie’s sentiments, WADA director general David Howman said a bigger budget would help the organization become more proactive.
“We need to do more in advance rather than reacting; I mean, most of my life at WADA has been waking up in the morning and reacting to what happened overnight and I would prefer to be more proactive and get out in the front of stuff. If we could do that with more information that we might get, with more inquiry, not necessarily investigation, inquiry and gathering information.”