On November 16th local time, the U.S. Senate approved the draft law, allowing its domestic courts to criminalize the use of doping in events involving American athletes. This bill can only come into force until the President signs it.
The bill covers not only American athletes, but also international events with American athletes, even American sponsors and even broadcasters. Any award-winning athletes from any country or region can test positive for doping. The U.S. judiciary can test against them. Penalty! Penalties up to $1 million and imprisonment for up to 10 years.
“Long arm jurisdiction” is beyond doubt!
International sports organization: America, take care of yourself first.
The International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency quickly both spoke, expressing “disapproval” of the United States’s move on behalf of the international sports community and pointed directly at the “double standard” of the United States.
As we all know, the American Professional League combines the “hardest hit area” and “enclave” of doping abuse, and the NCAA is also “not giving up” on this issue.
The IOC said in a statement that the IOC has been encouraging the major professional leagues and the NCAA to accept the World Anti-Doping Regulations.” The vast majority of the most popular athletes in the United States come from these two sides. Unfortunately, the new bill of the United States excludes it, and they have not signed the World Anti-Doping Regulations so far. “
As the top authority for global anti-doping, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has a more direct and powerful expression.
In a statement, President Banka, who just took office at the beginning of the year, said in a statement: “On behalf of all stakeholders, why does this U.S. bill, which aims to protect athletes and require ‘long-arm jurisdiction’, excludes the extremely popular American professional league and college sports? “
Banka stressed that the two parties were originally included in the bill, but were eventually removed for no reason. He asked: “If this bill is useless to American sports itself, why impose it on the world?”
IOC and WADA are equivalent to saying to the United States, “Why don’t you care about yourself?”
In response, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said that the relevant acts are already felonies in the United States.
However, WADA further pointed out the essence: no country has ever excluded criminal legislative jurisdiction against doping; and WADA is concerned about unilateralism in the United States because such bills can harm cooperation and partnerships among countries in the global anti-doping campaign.
The latest incident is that the National Drug Control Policy Office threatened to withdraw financial support to WADA. WADA President Banka not only warned of similar behaviors or caused the global ban on American athletes, but also produced two versions of the budget at last week’s WADA budget meeting – one with the United States and the other without the United States. .
The relationship between the U.S. government and WADA has recently deteriorated rapidly The latest incident is that the National Drug Control Policy Office threatened to withdraw financial support to WADA. WADA President Banka not only warned of similar behaviors or caused the global ban on American athletes, but also produced two versions of the budget at last week’s WADA budget meeting – one with the United States and the other without the United States. .
Legally, the World Anti-Doping Regulations do not have provisions for similar acts. Therefore, Banka said that the threat of the United States has prompted WADA to see the weaknesses of its own system. But if you want to amend the text of the Regulations, there is a long way to go!
In fact, the World Anti-Doping Regulations, which are in the status of international law, cannot impose binding on countries. In response to the current dispute between the WADA and the United States, former WADA president and Canadian Pound lamented that among the signatories to the Regulations, only sports organizations can be effectively restrained in fact.” We have zero tolerance for half of the members, but nothing we can do about the other half. This is not an equal partnership.”
It can be seen that the obvious consequences of this “long-arm jurisdiction” of the United States may not be seen in the short term. However, in the long run, the following pictures may appear:
1. The competitiveness of American enterprises in the international sports market is likely to continue to weaken.
Although North America is the world’s largest sports market, no sports manager will be happy to see similar “long-arm jurisdiction” add more uncertainty in a situation that has been hit hard by the epidemic and the outlook is extremely unoptimistic.
2. The American sports industry will be more “looked differently” by international organizations in doping testing.
There are already many positive cases of doping athletics in the United States. And despite the high level, the cost of participating in international competitions in the future will also increase for athletes from major professional sports leagues in the United States.
Because WADA President Banka has promised that he will try his best not to let the relevant disputes affect athletes. Based on this, we can imagine the most extreme situation: if the dispute between the two sides escalates, one day in the future, American athletes will be forced to participate in the Olympic Games as “Olympics from the United States” and the national flag will not be won at the opening and closing ceremonies.
Some people may ask: Americans basically participate in all kinds of positive cases of doping detected in every Olympic Games, including various international sports competitions. What should I do?
What else can we do? You know, whether you can “long-arm jurisdiction” ultimately depends on how many countries in the world are willing to cooperate with the United States..
