Blow to India's cricketers as WADA insists on whereabouts clause

The executive committee and foundation board of the World Anti-Doping Agency has endorsed the current system of athlete whereabouts requirement, rejected by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), at its meeting over the weekend in Montreal, Canada.

Results of a survey circulated earlier this year by WADA to anti-doping organisations showed that signatories to the anti-doping code overwhelmingly supported the principle of whereabouts and reported successful implementation of the rules, a media release from WADA said today.

The survey showed that there was some misunderstanding in a number of anti-doping organisations as to the purpose of the whereabouts requirements.

WADA chief John Fahey called for user-friendly guidelines to help international federations (IFs) and national anti-doping organisations (NADOs) to implement the code.

"Whereabouts information is a key element of effective out-of-competition testing programmes," Fahey said. "But they must be used by anti-doping organisations to design and implement truly effective testing programmes targeting top-level athletes, not just to systematically receive information from disproportionately high or low numbers of athletes that they will then not use.

"The provisional results of the review clearly indicated a need for user-friendly guidelines that can help IFs and NADOs to enforce the whereabouts rules."

As a way out, WADA has decided to consult athletes and its code signatories to come up with improvements ahead of the meeting of the executive committee and foundation board in November.

"A working group comprised of individuals from various stakeholders will now continue to consult with athletes and code signatories and present potential recommendations for practical improvements at the November meetings of WADA's executive committee and foundation board," Fahey said.

The contentious clause requires athletes in the common testing pool to furnish details of their whereabouts three months in advance to the anti-doping authorities.

India's cricketers have rejected the whereabouts clause of the WADA code, calling it a violation of their fundamental right to privacy and saying it poses a security threat. The BCCI supported their stand.

The International Cricket Council had last October decided to "suspend" the whereabouts clause until the concerns of the Indian players were sorted out.

Last week, WADA's media relations and communications senior manager Frederic Donze, in an email to the Press Trust of India, said the ICC's anti-doping rules were "in compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code".

"WADA continues to work with the ICC in the expectation that their out-of-competition testing programme, which has started, will advance and that the whereabouts requirements of the international standard for testing will be applied in cricket," he said.

At its weekend meetings, WADA also decided to send an independent observer and athlete outreach teams to the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October and the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, in November.

Twenty20 cricket, for men and women, is part of the programme at the Asiad, the first time the sport is to be played at the quarterly pan-Asian sports extravaganza.

The WADA committee also endorsed the approval of non-WADA accredited laboratories (forensic laboratories, clinical laboratories) for blood analysis to support the "Athlete Biological Passport" programme.

This decision followed a number of requests from stakeholders to use properly approved, non-WADA accredited facilities to increase the number of laboratories worldwide that have the capacity to analyse blood for the specific purpose of this programme, the release said.

"This is a significant step forward that the anti-doping community will welcome," said the WADA chief.

The executive committee also approved protocols to foster cooperation among anti-doping organisations by which they can request permission to test at an event where they are not the ruling body by sending the request 35 days in advance.

In case of refusal or non-response by the ruling body, a request to WADA at least 21 days prior to the event can be made, followed by contact between WADA and the ruling body, and then a final decision by WADA, the release said.

The responsibility for testing at international sporting events lies with the controlling international federation for the event, while national anti-doping organisations are responsible for testing at national events.

But article 15.1 of the code provides that anti-doping organisations can seek permission to test at an event where they are not the ruling body, the release said.

"We are confident that this protocol will provide the anti-doping community with an additional tool to ensure effective in-competition anti-doping programmes," said WADA director general David Howman.

"As the independent organisation responsible for monitoring the global fight against doping in sport, WADA constantly strives to foster cooperation [among] its stakeholders. The formalisation of these guidelines is a further step in that direction," he said.