The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) is facing a crisis after the US government failed to pay a $3.6 million contribution to the global sports watchdog’s annual budget.
Wada said the US had missed the December 31, 2024 payment deadline and retaliated by saying US representatives would now be ineligible to serve on the foundation’s board or executive committee.
The funding breakdown comes after a year of sniping between Wada and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada), which began when it was revealed last year that Wada had approved 23 Chinese swimmers to compete in the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, even though they had tested positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine (TMZ). Wada accepted the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency’s reasoning that a kitchen at a team hotel could have contaminated all 23 samples.
Travis Tygart, USADA CEO, said: “USada fully supports this decision by the United States. [government] as the only right choice to protect athletes’ rights and fair competition. Unfortunately, current Wada leaders have left the US with no choice after failing to meet a number of very reasonable requests to achieve the transparency and accountability necessary to ensure Wada is fit for purpose to protect athletes from all over the world.
“Since the revelation of Wada’s botched handling of the positive tests of 23 Chinese swimmers, which resulted in China and its athletes receiving special treatment under the rules, many stakeholders from around the world, including athletes, governments and national anti-doping agencies, have been seeking answers . , transparency and accountability of Wada leadership. There needs to be significant reforms at Wada to ensure this never happens again.”
Wada previously responded to Tygart’s claims that it betrayed clean athletes, saying it was “surprised by [his] outrageous, completely false and defamatory comments,” which were said to be “politically motivated and made with the intention of undermining Wada’s work.”
An independent report on the China case, published last year, criticized Wada’s “disorganization” and found that China’s Anti-Doping Agency had “significantly and fundamentally deviated from … procedure” and “that these deviations were particularly serious”, but Wada acquitted of bias.
Wada’s crisis is likely to deepen in 2025 as it seems doubtful that newly-elected President Donald Trump, who is skeptical of global organizations, would reverse the Biden administration’s 2024 decision.
Tygart said: “The US has been the highest government contributor to Wada since Wada’s inception in 2000 and is a strong supporter of an effective global anti-doping system to protect athletes competing at the highest levels. However, the authority to withhold payments to Wada was first established under the first Trump administration, in coordination with Congress, when Wada’s ineffectiveness in the Russian state-sponsored doping program was exposed.
A Wada investigation found that Russia had carried out a state-sponsored doping program since at least 2011 to subvert and subvert anti-doping protocols, including falsifying samples of Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
In a statement to the Guardian, Wada said: “The World Anti-Doping Agency confirms that it has not received the agreed contribution to Wada’s 2024 budget from the United States Government by the December 31, 2024 deadline.
“Pursuant to Article 6.6 of the Wada Statutesrepresentatives of government agencies from a country that has not paid its dues are not eligible to serve on the foundation board or executive committee. Therefore, any member of the Foundation Board or Executive Committee representing a country that has not paid its annual contribution for the previous year will automatically lose its seat on January 1.
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“The outstanding amount owed by the US government to Wada is $3.625 million. For context, Wada’s total budget for 2025 has been approved at $57.5 million.”
The US representative on the Wada executive committee is listed as Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The funding problem signals a formal rift between Wada and the country that is not only the world’s geopolitical leader but also hosts the next two biggest global sporting events: the 2026 Men’s World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. seems inconceivable that FIFA and the IOC would respond to these events with such a seismic rift between the host nation and the global anti-doping body, and both organizations will work hard to repair relations, albeit without comprehensive Wada reform seems unlikely to change the Trump administration’s position.
Wada has also criticized Usada for using undercover agents to expose dopers, a practice exposed by The Observer in July, with Wada claiming this was outside their rules. Usada claimed that it was allowed under the Wada Code and that Wada officials had signed off on the operation and helped implement it. It is well known that current US officials have very little confidence that Wada is pursuing its agenda aggressively enough.
In 2019, the US government under Trump passed the Rodchenkov Act, named after the Russian Olympic whistleblower, to allow it to pursue criminal charges against doping athletes, regardless of nationality, when competing against US athletes in major championships and training in the US. Since then, the federal government has deployed customs officials and FBI agents in the fight against doping, but Wada has criticized the use of undercover agents to expose dopers. USADA’s position is that intelligence-based enforcement is far more effective than sample testing.