July 5, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 4,1424

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PRAGUE, July 4: Sport’s anti-doping crusade faces a financial crisis and is slashing its budget due to the reluctance of leading nations to fund the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), its president Dick Pound said on Friday.

Pound told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) his agency, set up in 1999 to spearhead the fight against performance-enhancing drugs, had been forced to cut their budget for research from $5 million to $1 million.

“We actually face a cash flow crisis,” he said. “I am not prepared to run WADA on a deficit basis. It’s bad management and it’s probably illegal.

“Doping is the biggest challenge faced by sport today. It is a huge concern for us. But until we get the money I am not prepared to commit it to research.”

IOC Chairman Jacques Rogge later told the meeting the IOC itself had recently made another payment, bringing its contribution to $6.1 million by the end of June. With that, WADA has roughly half of its projected $20.24 million overall annual budget for 2003.

“We have discussed, the President of the IOC and myself, possible ways of increasing the pressure on governments who don’t pay using the Olympic Games,” Pound said.

“And while I hope that everybody will pay, sometime in the next two or three months we will probably put out some indications of what embarrassment we can cause to governments that haven’t paid.”

Measures include preventing athletes from marching under their nation’s flag at the opening ceremony and blocking governmental accreditation, Pound said.

Countries were supposed to pay their 2003 contributions before the start of the year, but most notably, the Americas and Asia, have failed to do so.

With the Athens Games in 2004 approaching, Pound said the shortfall could effect anti-doping preparations.

He also said that WADA was not able to fulfil its role as an anti-doping “clearing house” which helped coordinate and keep track of testing and results worldwide.

WADA aims to carry out 5,500 tests this year, including 750 for the blood-boosting agent EPO. These tests are in addition to those carried out by international federations and national anti-doping bodies.

“There are very significant effects of non-payment...Without the money, we are not able to do the work,” Pound said.

He said WADA was not able to do research on doping, and had to cut down on some initiatives “that we think are important against the fight against doping in sport”.

One of the largest nations yet to pay is the United States, but Pound has said in the past that due to national fiscal reasons, it may consider delaying payment until October.—Reuters