Patrick Gower interviews World Anti-Doping Agency Director General David Howman

David Howman: Well, I guess the answer to that is there’s probably at least two issues. One is money, because if you look back 20, 25 years, there was not the amount of money in world sport that there is today. And secondly, regrettably, because of the money, there’s a criminal underworld component. And that’s growing, and it’s growing in a way which really can’t be controlled by sport itself. Sport requires governments to step in and give them a hand, and I think that’s the big challenge in the next five years – how can that hand be given?
Patrick Gower: So we’re talking about crime here. We’re talking, I guess, about organised crime, are we?
You’re talking about organised crime, which-- We usually use the term ‘mafia’. There are different Mafioso in different countries, but at the end of the day, it’s all about those people who want to take shortcuts to earn extra money, and they are making a lot of money. They’re making a lot of money by pushing steroids; a lot of money by match-fixing; a lot of money through bribery and corruption.
What about the influence of gambling? Is that wrecking sport?
Well, I think it fits into two categories – legal gambling, which can be policed, and illegal gambling, which is very, very difficult to police. And it’s the latter which causes sport concern, because it goes on in many countries where you’re never going to find out. And with that advent of the Internet and the advent of spot gambling and cash gambling and so on, that’s where the criminal gangs are getting a toehold.
Sure, and looking now at one issue – FIFA, of course – in terms of corruption in sport. Sepp Blatter is going; FIFA’s mired in corruption for taking bribes so countries get selected as venues. How do we clean this up? Do Qatar and Russia, for instance, need to have their rights for those future World Cups looked at again, in your opinion?
Well, I mean, that’s a tough question for me to answer. FIFA are responsible for the world game of football. They have a very strong organisation which has been torn apart by these allegations – at the moment they’re only allegations – of corruption, which do need to be fully investigated and completed, and I think that’s going to take time. Today I would say they have been incapable of doing that, because these allegations started to be raised in the early 2000s. This is not new. And they were pushed to one side, or they were told that they were being dealt with by new internal rules that FIFA had in place – regrettably, no. So now I think they have to stand back and say, ‘Who’s going to help us get us out of this mess? Can we do it ourselves, or do we have to rely on other to help?’
And that’s the question, isn’t it, in terms of if they need to rely on others, what sort of organisation needs to be out there in the world on the side of clean sport—to clean up FIFA, for instance?
Well, I’ve been saying for the last five or six years that the part the we are responsible for – the doping, which is cheating – ought to be linked with these other parts – bribery, corruption, match-fixing, spot-fixing, whatever you want to call it, illegal betting – because they all are part of the challenge to the integrity of sport. So why look at opening up different organisations when you’ve already got one with a pretty good modus operandi, a very good link between government and sport, in place now? Why can’t that be expanded?
So you think there should be a coordinated New Zealand agency as well that would be a Kiwi version of what happens on a global scale – something that involves the police and different agencies—a one-stop shop here in New Zealand, for instance?
I think that’s where it’s heading, and I think you’ll find already that the New Zealand agency has links with the police, has links with New Zealand Customs, that they can get information in relation to doping issues. But what should that not be opened a wee bit to include match-fixing or bribery or whatever other issues there are out there?
And moving on now to a sport that we both love – rugby here in New Zealand – so far free of any kind of scandal, any kind of doping, any kind of match-fixing. The World Cup is coming up. Can we be sure that the All Blacks or rugby is immune from these sort of scandals we’ve seen in other sports?
Well, I think the leadership of New Zealand rugby is very strong, and I think the leadership within the team is very strong. And one of the issues that we’ve found of recent years is that team culture will find out the person who’s taking a shortcut. So the team itself – this is backed by research – will ensure that the—let’s call them the bad guys, or the guy who wants to take a shortcut, is actually ferretted out and will not be part of it. And I think the building of the team culture is very vital in rugby and in other team sports.
Yeah, and do you think that will keep rugby immune from this sort of thing?
Well, there’s more and more money coming into rugby, and once you have more money coming into rugby – and I’m not talking necessarily about New Zealand here – then you have people who surround those athletes who are making that money, because everybody wants a piece of the action. And it’s the entourage that are the ones who start deviating the athletes into the wrong areas. That’s the area of concern that I have.
But looking at people who do decide to cheat—Lance Armstrong obviously the highest-profile of them all that your agency has dealt with. Right now he wants to get back in his bike. Should he?
Well, look. I’ve had dealings with Mr Armstrong over a number of years. He’s been told if he wishes to come forward with what we call ‘substantial assistance’ – in other words, information about what doping is, or who’s involved, or who was involved – then he would be listened to, and if it amounted to some substance, then his term could be reduced. He hasn’t done that.
And on that, look at the punishment. Are the sanctions enough? Because here we have Lance Armstrong who’s gone away, made a whole lot of money, hasn’t actually lost much of that, is still fighting. It took a long time to stop him. Are the sanctions enough to put people off cheating?
Well, I think that’s the big current issue – do we rely solely on sports sanctions, or do we have to look at criminal sanctions? And I think the FIFA exercise is such that we now have to have that debate. It was only when people were told they were going to be marched into prison that the mouths started opening. We suffer a lot in sport with omerta; we suffer a lot where people do not want to open their mouths for fear of retribution or whatever, and whether that’s personal to their family or to their friends. We need that to stop, and we need it therefore to be opened by some threat which is more realistic than just saying, ‘You’re out of the sport for two or three years.’ So it’s regrettable, because I think sport has moved away from being the fun leisure time thing that it was into a business which is more corporate, where you do need corporate responsibility. And if you fail that, you should be dealt with like any other member of society.
Sure. And in terms of cheating in sport, because you see a lot of it, what percentage, to your mind--? How many are getting caught?
We, under the system we operate, with collecting samples and analysing them, do not get all the cheats. We’ve opened up our mandate to include the gathering of informational evidence through police or Customs or other people. That’s proved to be quite helpful. But we still suspect there are people who are evading detection, and I would not like to out a number on it. I’ve been quoted in the past to say probably in the double digits – probably more than 10% are out there taking the shortcuts. The numbers who are actually brought to sanction – around 2% or 3%.
Yeah, so 7% getting away with it. Are you ultimately now in a doomed fight against human greed and ambition? Because that’s what you’re up against, aren’t you? You’re up against greed and ambition.
Look, we’ll never win that war. What you do is you win battles, and you win battles along the way which are significant, which do help clean athletes, and I think you’ve got a couple of examples here in this country, with Valerie Adams being elevated from silver to gold in London. You’ve got Nick Willis, who was elevated into the podium in Beijing and so on, where if you didn’t have the watchdog that we are, they wouldn’t have achieved that. So you win the battles. The war – I think it’s a war that’s being fought in society all the time. How do you get rid of plagiarists in journalism? How do you get rid of cheating lawyers? And the answer to that is you can’t, because there are too many temptations for those to take the shortcuts, but you can at least make it harder for them, and you can make it so that there are fewer of them succeeding.
David Howman, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you, Paddy.
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