PARIS —
Anti-doping organizations are torn over a suggestion from the director general
of the
International Cycling Union (ICU) to pay sports insiders to inform on
their rivals or colleagues.
اضافة اعلان
“We need
information from the peloton. We need Radio Peloton,” Amina Lanaya told a
French newspaper earlier this year.
To fight what
she called “a form of omerta” in her sport she said the UCI needed to
“infiltrate the peloton, infiltrate certain teams, pay for ‘grasses’.”
Paid criminal
informants are a staple of police work in many countries, but Lanaya’s
suggestion that sport adopts the same approach has led to debate in the
anti-doping community, even as they acknowledge that some of the biggest cases
in recent years were broken thanks to tip-offs.
One of the
biggest scandals in history, the vast system of institutionalized doping in
Russia, gained world-wide attention in 2014 when German broadcaster ARD released
a series of documentaries based on information from Vitaly Stepanov, a former
an employee of Russia’s anti-doing agency RUSADA, and his wife, runner Yulia
Stepanova.
“It is essential
to have informants,” said Damien Ressiot, head of the investigation department at the French
anti-doping agency (AFLD), who pointed out that of the 11 violations of
anti-doping rules, only one involved testing.
“And on the
other ten, we only get them by investigating,” he explains.
Those categories
include the athlete’s whereabouts failures, tampering with samples, possession
as well as threats or retaliation against informants.
Yet Ressiot is
not convinced that paying informants will work.
“I don’t see the
point,” he says.
Guenter Younger,
a former German policeman and Interpol officer who is the head of the
investigations at the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), agreed.
“I’m not a big
fan, to be honest,” he told AFP.
‘None asked to be
paid’
While Younger said some informants are driven by idealism and a desire
“for clean sport”, Ressiot added “but also sometimes by envy, or for other
reasons”.
The AFLD and
WADA have both created dedicated tip web sites.
“We have a lot
of information through this channel,” said Ressiot, adding that the AFLD
received 80 reports in 2021 on its site.
Younger says
that WADA’s five-year-old ‘Speak Up!’ web page has also been highly productive.
He said “none of
the informants over the past five years has asked to be paid”.
WADA can offer
financial aid for “substantial assistance” by informants but, said Younger,
these are used more as an expense allowance “for whistleblowers, if they have
to travel to a place for example”.
The aid is also
used to protect and escort athletes caught doping who decide to collaborate.
“This has
already happened in the past,” says Ressiot.
But, he says,
the AFLD has never taken on paid informants.
Younger says
handing over cash for tips raises practical questions.
“It would be a
problem for me to pay for something without knowing what it will be,” he said.
“I would
probably ask for the information before knowing if I should pay for it, I would
evaluate it and then I would ask for the price.”
Other observers
support Lanaya.
“There is a very
strong omerta in the sports world. Anything that can break it is a good thing,”
said Pim Verschuuren, who works on sports governance at the French Institut de
Relations Internationales et Strategiques.
But, he warns, “by
creating informants, we will place athletes in risky situations, they will be
exposed and perhaps in danger. It must be minimal”.
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