The Ministry of Sports of Russia has published recommendations for regional leaders, which contain an appeal not to appoint people involved in anti-doping rule violations to responsible positions. The document appeared as part of a campaign to create a culture of zero tolerance for doping in the country and is intended, among other things, to attract the attention of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, which next fall will decide on a new portion of sanctions against Russia for doping violations. However, the implementation of the recommendations in practice can turn into a host of problems, experts say.
Easy to dispute
The appointment of former doping officials to key positions was recognized as a serious reputational issue three years ago in the National Anti-Doping Plan. Former Minister of Sports Pavel Kolobkov has developed amendments to laws prohibiting the admission of people involved in doping scandals into the civil service. However, attempts to understand this topic so far have run into tremendous contradictions. The fact is that in Russia, a ban on holding a position or certain activities is imposed only by a civil court, and decisions on doping cases are usually taken by sports authorities, and often foreign ones.
Therefore, the current letter from the Ministry of Sports is in the nature of recommendations and contains very vague formulations. For example, it is not clear what “responsible positions” are – does this definition refer exclusively to officials or does it apply to heads of local federations and coaches of regional teams? And whether we are talking about “outstanding” penalties or about the doping past in general. In the latter case, the question arises: why should a person be responsible twice for the same offense? Obviously, if it comes to real bans on the profession, the letter from the Ministry of Sports can be quite easily challenged.
“I think these are the right recommendations,” Vladimir Lukin, President of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), told Izvestia. – I say this with regret, because the life of a number of good specialists who love and are accustomed to their work will be disrupted. But, of course, the fight against doping is a priority. This is an absolutely intolerable thing. Therefore, the position of the RPC and mine personally is that there should be no excuses and indulgences for dopers. If a person is found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation, they should not hold any position in the sports industry.
Vladimir Lukin believes that the recommendations should concern not only new appointments, but also affect those athletes with a doping past who now have high-ranking positions.
– If their doping cases are proven, the guilt is not questioned, then they must be parted, – the head of the RPC stressed.
Note that at the moment, many athletes with a doping background hold important positions in Russian sports. For example, in the leadership of the Youth Army there are three athletes with a doping background (Dmitry Trunenkov, Elena Slesarenko, Tatyana Lebedeva), bobsledder Alexei Voevoda is a State Duma deputy (disqualified until December 2020), Khadzhimurat Akkaev is the president of the Rostov-on-Don Weightlifting Federation (disqualification until August 2024), Yana Romanova is an analyst for the Russian national biathlon team (she was deprived of silver at the 2014 Games in Sochi and was suspended from the Olympics for life for violation of anti-doping rules. She is pending an appeal to the CAS).
Dope label
And it’s not just the lack of a “culture of zero tolerance for doping.” The endless scandals in which our country has been dragged into for five years have shown that there are a lot of nuances in this issue. And the international anti-doping system is imperfect. For example, accused athletes often refuse to fight for their good name and enter into settlement agreements with disciplinary authorities in order to quickly resume their careers and save money on lawyers. However, the recommendations of the Ministry of Sports take the issue of proof of innocence to a new level.
Previously, it was only about a break in performances, but now the stigma of a doping becomes for an athlete not only a moral, but also a completely material problem for the rest of his life. Moreover, even if the guilt was insignificant and the punishment was, for example, only a month. To declare that in this way we encourage athletes not to violate anti-doping rules seems beautiful. But we must understand that in recent years thousands of Russians have appeared in doping cases, and by no means in all cases their guilt was obvious, and the level of evidence of the prosecution was impeccable.
“We have signed all the necessary documents to comply with the new WADA code, and it clearly states that people with a doping background cannot hold leadership positions in Russian sports,” said the President of the Russian Curling Federation (RCF), State Duma deputy in a conversation with Izvestia Dmitry Svishchev. – Still, we have had cases when disqualified athletes and coaches violated anti-doping laws and the whole industry suffered from this. For example, athletics and this story with Viktor Chegin (it turned out that a lifelong disqualified specialist was training walkers from the Russian national team in incognito). Plus, in many ways, such violations often occur precisely in the regions and those institutions that are not directly subordinate to the Ministry of Sports. So these recommendations are essential.
At the same time, Dmitry Svishchev does not believe that these recommendations of the Ministry of Sports will somehow help us in CAS.
“This is hardly a weighty argument,” continued the head of the FKR. – First of all, this is a global all-Russian work to cleanse our sport from the doping heritage.
CAS will review RUSADA and WADA’s case from November 2-5. The meeting was originally supposed to take place in May, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. In December 2019, WADA suspended Russia for four years from major international competitions due to changes in the database of the Moscow laboratory, and also deprived RUSADA of compliance status. The Russian side has filed an appeal with the CAS.