Declan Hill: So-called 'Secret' WADA Think Tank report leaked (link)

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7 years ago 09/20/2016 9:16pm EDT

http://declanhill.com/secret-report-wada/

Declan Hill wrote: Below is the confidential paper on building an investigative culture in a corrupt sports world that I wrote for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Think Tank held in Lausanne (IOC home) on September 20th.
It was supposed to be secret but some craven twit leaked it to his pals in the media within 24-hours of it being circulated.
Now that a number of journalists have read it, I have no hesitation in making it public.

Four Lessons towards Effective Investigations

Lesson 1: Words Mean Nothing

Lesson 2: Trust no one

Lesson 3: Appearances Matter

Lesson 4: Reverse the Trust Debt

In the current sports world, the clean athletes and coaches must trust WADA to do three things:
i) Keep them safe
ii) Preserve the integrity of the competitions
iii) Punish the dopers.

WADA should reward whistleblowers. There is an excellent program in Washington D.C. run by the Inland Revenue Service that gives the whistleblowers a percentage of the money saved by the American taxpayers due to their revelations. This could be discussed as a possible model in sports. If a whistleblower were to receive the prize money given to a doping athlete it would attack the trust within the community of doping athletes, coaches and doctors.

7 years ago 09/20/2016 9:22pm EDT

re: Leaks are inevitable

The Russian-linked hacking group â€˜Fancy Bearsâ€™ has broken into much of WADAâ€™s database from an IOC e-mail address. Given this announcement, WADA staff and executives should currently assume that all their communication, by computer or mobile phone, is insecure (compares to Hillary's State Dept)

There's another angle too.

Perhaps most threatening to WADAâ€™s future, the Qatari-funded organization the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS) is negotiating with the IOC and other sports officials to establish an agency responsible for integrity in sports. The proposed new agency will be launched in January 2017 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Thomas Bach, the President of the IOC, is due to speak on this issue on October 8th, 2016.

Quite why the IOC would publicly link themselves to a Qatari backed group on â€™sports integrityâ€™ is beyond me.

At the same time, he points out that IOC specifically has that ICSS will only be interested in match-fixing, and not doping. Perhaps mission-creep will ensue? Don't think is "most threatening" IMO.

7 years ago 09/20/2016 9:55pm EDT

re: Leaks are inevitable

Leaks are inevitable wrote:
WADA should reward whistleblowers. There is an excellent program in Washington D.C. run by the Inland Revenue Service that gives the whistleblowers a percentage of the money saved by the American taxpayers due to their revelations. This could be discussed as a possible model in sports. If a whistleblower were to receive the prize money given to a doping athlete it would attack the trust within the community of doping athletes, coaches and doctors.

I think he means the Internal revenue service (USA IRS), but as WADA can't recover prize money from dopers (and organizers rather rarely), it is hard to see how it would work. The real prizes are from Nike et al., who are unlikely to adhere to such a scheme.

7 years ago 09/20/2016 10:08pm EDT

re: IOC < WADA

Why is WADA threatened? Someone has to explain this to me in small words.

WADA does exactly what the IOC and IFs planned. They set standards. The IFs apply the standards and enforce. Money rolls into the IFs. Everyone is happy.

That means doping is okay. Just bring the money and viewers.

7 years ago 09/20/2016 10:56pm EDT

re: pop_pop_v2.2.1

Qatar?! You can kiss any problems goodbye with Aden. If he's backed by the Qatari governing body, there is not a single bit of chance that anything will be one of the Sabadell raid.

7 years ago 09/21/2016 4:39am EDT

re: Leaks are inevitable

Thanks for posting this.

7 years ago 09/21/2016 4:43am EDT

re: Really disappointing

Really disappointing wrote:
Qatar?! You can kiss any problems goodbye with Aden. If he's backed by the Qatari governing body, there is not a single bit of chance that anything will be one of the Sabadell raid.

I shudder when I hear Qatari money is funding this. If you look carefully these same Qataris have funded Sunni terrorist groups that link to ISIS etc.

7 years ago 09/21/2016 6:26am EDT

re: Leaks are inevitable

Declan Hill wrote
It was supposed to be secret but some craven twit leaked it to his pals in the media within 24-hours of it being circulated.

Why was it supposed to be secret? Methinks Dr. Hill is himself the "craven twit" and is looking for publicity, but wants to posture himself otherwise.

7 years ago 09/24/2016 1:55am EDT

re: Leaks are inevitable

Now it's been officially denied.http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1041933/exclusive-plans-to-introduce-integrity-unit-total-fabrication-claims-iocExclusive: Plans to introduce integrity unit "total fabrication", claims IOC

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has claimed there "is not a shred of truth" in suggestions that they are planning to form a new Integrity Unit to oversee anti-doping and match fixing issues.

"Perhaps most threatening to WADAâ€™s future, the Qatari-funded organisation the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS) is negotiating with the IOC and other sports officials to establish an agency responsible for integrity in sports," investigative journalist Declan Hill said during a keynote speech to the Think Tank in Lausanne which he subsequently published on his website.

All of this has now been denied by IOC Presidential spokesman Mark Adams, however, who told insidethegames today that it is a "total fabrication".
Adams, due to arrive here tomorrow for the Opening Ceremony of the Asian Beach Games, added: "There is not a shred of truth to it.
"We honestly don't know where it came from.
"It has not been considered and will not be considered."

insidethegames has been told that the origin of such an Integrity Unit may have come from a speech given by former British Prime MInister David Cameron at an Anti-Corruption Summit in London in May.
The IOC were represented at the Summit by their chief ethics and compliance officer Paquerette Girard-Zappelli.
After the event, Bach was quoted on the IOC website as saying: "As welcomed by the Summit, we will take the fight against corruption further by launching the International Sports Integrity Partnership."

It is possible that WADA may have spread reports of such an idea in order to gather support for their alternative plans.
It is also conceivable that the IOC deliberately allowed the rumour to grow before denying it today in order to foster uncertainty within the anti-doping movement.

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Declan Hill: So-called 'Secret' WADA Think Tank report leaked (link)

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