Sport: Exclusion of Drugs

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, we might have hoped that the World Anti-Doping Agency—WADA—would have exposed the most recent scandal involving Russia. We might have expected WADA to have welcomed the in-depth news investigative journalism serving the cause of clean athletes. But the reverse is true. It was not WADA; it was the German broadcaster ADR and then the Sunday Times. It was the excellent work of Hajo Sappelt. It was not WADA which broke the BALCO story and exposed Marion Jones, but the law enforcement agencies. It was not WADA but the Sunday Times and the law enforcement agencies which exposed the former era of pervasive drugs in cycling. When they did, the response of sports administrators too often defied belief. They went straight to their default position of blaming the press—a declaration of war against the Sunday Times in athletics, while Craig Reedie continued to praise Russia in his capacity as president of WADA. Why?

The problem is a straightforward conflict of interest. WADA is equally owned by Governments and the IOC. Those IOC members involved see Russia’s electoral power in the world of sports administration wielding a significant influence. The same applies in international sports federations. Where Governments and their sports administrations are one and the same, they risk losing political support if they show determined leadership in the war against drugs wherever they are endemic.

WADA is in need of fundamental and far-reaching reform and Governments have done far too little. Why Governments? Because they are full partners in WADA but their level of representation is often well beneath the seniority in government required to manage this issue, which is now a crisis. The Government pay a significant contribution to WADA, so now is the time for my honourable friend the Minister to call for an independent audit, because it is failing to lead and failing to succeed. WADA was even subject to serious criticism by its own independent commission, led by a former WADA president. The noble Lord, Lord Addington—I am grateful to him for raising the subject—outlined the 11 countries which are currently non-compliant or on a watch list. The dark and dirty underbelly of sport is being laid bare. It is time for sponsors to act. It is time for Governments to act. It is time for sports administrators to act. Despite all the warnings, we hobble from scandal to scandal.

Dick Pound, who headed the independent commission’s first report, concluded that London was sabotaged by the drug cheats. The head of WADA, Craig Reedie, quickly and publicly disagreed with his own independent commission, further compounding the mixed messages coming from WADA. Has he forgotten that clean athletes have been denied their medals? Competing chemists’ laboratories work around the clock to boost the chances of their athletes through drug-induced cheating. Now we know that Russia’s endemic corruption sabotaged our Games. Honest would-be champions suffer when the chance to fulfil their Olympic ambitions is stolen from them; when Olympic medals are snatched from their grasp; and when they are robbed not just of Olympic glory but of all the associated rewards they deserve.

The World Anti-Doping Agency boss, David Howman, believes that one in 10 athletes is a drugs cheat—a figure less than that arrived at by the 2015 Dutch National Anti-Doping Agency report, which concluded that 14% to 39% is the best available estimate. David Howman at least had the courage to tell an Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association conference last month:

“I want to pose the question: should doping be a criminal matter? It is in Italy, and WE think—some of US—that the real deterrent that cheating athletes fear is the fear of going to prison not the fear of being stood down from their sport for a year, two years, four years but a fear of going to prison”.

Yet days later, in the face of a growing interest in legislative proposals for criminalisation of doping in sport around the world, his boss Craig Reedie said that WADA is,

“completely opposed to the criminalisation of athletes”.

We should follow many other countries and consider the criminalisation of doping in sport. I welcome the announcement by the Minister for Sport that this is under review. I wonder whether the Minister here today can update the House on progress in that regard.

As the Russian crisis besetting athletics was breaking, WADA was quick to stand by Russia. The president wrote to Natalia Zhelanova, the Russian anti-doping commissar, stating:

“I wish to make it clear to you and to the Minister that there is no action being taken by WADA that is critical of the efforts which I know have been made, and are being made, to improve anti-doping efforts in Russia”.

WADA, he continued, were,

“pleased that these relationships have survived much of the adverse publicity caused by the ARD television programs (which are likely to continue for some time) … I value the relationships with Minister Mutko and would be grateful if you (Natalia Zhelanova) will inform him that there is no intention in WADA to do anything to affect that relationship”.

How could WADA and the Governments—its members—get the situation so horribly wrong? It is time for Governments to join a call for a full and independent review into both their own and their member state contributions to WADA, and to support the call for far-reaching and much overdue reform. This audit should, please, be led by totally independent lawyers and medics, supported by clean athletes with the skill sets needed to lead the campaign on doping in sport worldwide. It should not be led by people who rely on IOC members and International Sports Federation representatives for their electoral success—for their jobs. Such a soft approach against the country with the highest number of drug cheats in the world beggars belief in the fight on behalf of clean athletes.

Equally serious, another senior member and close friend of the president of WADA, Pat Hickey, who is on the International Olympic Committee’s executive board, went public within days of the publication of the damning revelations in the Pound Report, confident that Russia will be back for Rio. Every time that is said by a senior IOC member before action is taken, the compliance bar is being lowered. The principle of zero tolerance is fast becoming a contradiction in terms.

Those in this House who regularly speak in debates on sport look to the Government to ensure that full transparency, accountability and professional management are in place before tax and lottery money are invested. The corridors of sport, I am afraid, are riddled with conflicts of interest. We have our own example. Perhaps the Minister could inform the House what action was taken when Nicole Sapstead, the UK Anti-Doping chief executive, sent emails to the head of the British Olympic Association—I declare an interest, having chaired it in the run-up to London 2012—after an investigation by the Sunday Times revealing widespread blood doping in athletics, stating that,

“we will do everything we can to ensure the focus is on the positive news. The last thing we want is a story like this detracting from the Rio countdown”.

The role of all anti-doping agencies should be wholly, necessarily and exclusively focused on tackling drug abuse in sport. There can never be any other considerations.

It all comes back to those in charge and the urgent need for a step change in the governance of sport both nationally and internationally. Governance is critical. All office holders in international sports organisations should be paid the going rate for their jobs. Conflicts of interest must end. The test used in your Lordships’ House of whether a reasonable person would believe that a conflict existed must apply to all senior sports administrators both nationally and internationally, starting at the top. The moment you choose to be a leading sports administrator, you have to turn away from seeking to make money from sport as a businessman or woman. After all, it is very difficult to substantiate that you are going to spend every waking hour tackling doping in sport if you have a highly paid day job in sport, accountable to your shareholders.

Michael Beloff QC is advising the IAAF and my noble friend Lord Coe. In the light of the current crisis and in the interests of good governance, that advice should be made public. I ask the Minister to seek to obtain that advice and place it in the House Library.

I conclude by giving the reason why I feel so strongly about this. It is because the casualties are the clean sportsmen and sportswomen. Cheating is inimical to the very essence of sport and to its philosophy of team spirit, honesty and loyalty. Cheating, by whatever means, has no place in sport. These cheats have shredded the dreams of clean athletes with every needle they inject. They have destroyed the years of training and competition necessary for a clean athlete to reach the pinnacle of sport.