Internal issues weigh down Wada

BBC Sport special report

The picture that's emerging after two days of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) congress in Madrid is of an organisation at a crossroads.

Whilst the cheats keep on cheating, and relentlessly searching for the next drug to give them an edge, Wada is attempting to reconcile its responsibility to try and stop them with the distraction of a messy internal power struggle, and arguments over funding.

Wada's greatest strength is also beginning to look like its biggest weakness.

A creation born of a consensus between governments and sports organisations, Wada remains beholden to them all, and the baggage that inevitably accompanies them.

How wearingly predictable is the tussle for who should become the next Wada president?

The lobby of European governments don't like the idea of Australian John Fahey getting a free run at the job.

He wouldn't have, were it not for the bizarre withdrawal of former French sports minister Jean Francois Lamour a month or so ago.

He thought he was a shoo-in for the job until Fahey's candidature was announced.

Then, in what can best be described as a hissy fit, Lamour ditched Wada saying he didn't think the organisation had the bottle for the fight - perhaps when he realised he might not get the top job after all.

Tell me why the European ministers wasted two hours on Friday morning attempting to come up with a blocking strategy, ahead of Saturday's election, finally coming up with former French Olympic hurdles champion Guy Drut as an alternative candidate.

Call me cynical, but wouldn't Wada's true purpose have been better served by two hours of hand-wringing over how to stop the cheats abusing human growth hormone with impunity all the way up to the start line in Beijing?

Wada's scientists are desperately seeking more funding above and beyond the modest US �12m per year the organisation is permitted in order to advance research into drug testing.

Highly respected figures like Arne Ljungqvist, head of Wada's research and medical committee, talk passionately about the need to divert more of the billions swilling around in sport's absurd salaries and fabulous prize pots to strengthen their hand against the unscrupulous minority who want to cheat the honest athletes.

Surely, that's why we're all here? Governments pay lip service to the cause but half of them don't pay their contributions, and the half that do think that gives them the right to argue among themselves about how to run the show.

They need to wake up and smell the caffeine.

Whilst the hundreds of delegates here plot and pontificate over their three-course lunches, the cheats carry on cheating, in increasingly sophisticated ways.

Wada should be evolving into a better funded, more confident organisation, free to make quick decisions and strike hard against those who threaten the integrity of sport.

The risk is its cumbersome constitution will prevent it from doing so.

Source: BBC Sport