Integrity

Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.

Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. There are many threats to the integrity of the sector that have seen individuals, and indeed entire organisations, succumb and compromise their behaviour and the reputation of their sport. Here, we will go into some of those in detail as well as introducing other areas of concern for the sector going into the future.

Anti-doping movement

Since the Russia doping scandal, the World Anti-Doping Agency and the global anti-doping movement has been under sustained pressure to become more accountable and reform.

As a result of this, WADA published a paper, Progress of the Anti-Doping System in Light of the Russian Doping Crisis, which was last updated on 22 January 2019.

WADA’s views of the main issues were:

The cheating in Russia was encouraged, organised, and protected, and thus not detected.
The Moscow and Sochi Laboratories were institutionally controlled, protected and thus the cheating was not detected.
There were no proper channels for whistleblowers to provide information regarding alleged Anti-doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) under the World Anti-Doping Code; non-compliance violations under the Code; or any act or omission that could undermine the fight against doping in sport.
Upon receipt of such information, WADA had no power to investigate until it was accorded those powers within the 2015 Code (which came into force on 1 January 2015).
Following WADA’s independent investigations, there were no defined sanctions agreed by all stakeholders that could be applied and no clear delineation as to which organisations were accountable for applying consequences in relation to outcomes of the investigations.
There was no clear dispute resolution mechanism in place that could have led to a decision being accepted and applied by all anti-doping organisations (ADOs).

Measures WADA has taken to address these issues include:

Shifting its focus to ensuring that signatories to the WADA Code have quality antidoping programs in place and, in keeping with strong demand from stakeholders, that their compliance be monitored rigorously. In 2016, WADA initiated development of a certified Code compliance monitoring program that was expanded in 2017. The programme, which represents the most thorough review of anti-doping rules and programmes that has ever taken place, aims to reinforce athlete and public confidence in the standard of ADOs worldwide.
In 2017, WADA put in place a working group to review the accreditation process and the quality control of

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