WADA confirms U.S. loses seat in executive committee for unpaid funding

Toronto, Jan 10 (IANS) The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has confirmed that the United States automatically loses its seat on the organisation's executive committee for refusing to pay its annual funding. The anti-doping watchdog said the U.S. failed to pay its contribution of 3.62 million U.S. dollars for 2024, which accounted for 14% of WADA's budget.

"The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirms that it did not receive the agreed contribution to WADA's 2024 budget from the Government of the United States by the deadline of December 31, 2024," WADA told Chinese news agency Xinhua in an email.

According to Article 6.6 of the WADA Statutes, "Public Authority representatives from a country which has not paid its dues are ineligible to sit on the Foundation Board or the Executive Committee." Therefore, the U.S. will lose its seat in the executive committee.

WADA's overall budget for 2025 has been approved at 57.5 million U.S. dollars.

The U.S. government has withheld the funding to WADA as per its long-running threat which it had raised again while expressing its unhappiness with the handling of many important cases including that of the Chinese swimmers.

"WADA must take concrete actions to restore trust in the world anti-doping system and provide athletes the full confidence they deserve," said Rahul Gupta, who is listed as a member of the WADA executive committee. "When U.S. taxpayer dollars are allocated, we must ensure full accountability and it is our responsibility to ensure those funds are used appropriately," he added.

While the United States officials stuck to their stand, WADA president Witold Banka and Director General Olivier Niggli in their New Year message supported their handling of the alleged contamination case of Chinese swimmers.

"While we are proud of all that we accomplished together in 2024, as many of you would know, this past year was also significantly disrupted by the China Anti-Doping Agency no-fault contamination cases involving 23 swimmers from China that emerged in April and that WADA responded to quickly and thoroughly.

"By July, a review had been carried out by an Independent Prosecutor, Mr. Eric Cottier, which determined that WADA showed no bias towards China and that the Agency’s decision not to appeal the cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was reasonable based on the evidence," they said in their message.

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