CELAD Korruption, Vertuschung
Die spanische Anti-Doping-Agentur CELAD sah sich Ende 2023 und Anfang 2024 schweren Vorwürfen gegenüber.
Im Dezember 2023 veröffentlichte das spanische Sport-Onlinemagazin RELEVO nach schwieriger Recherche mögliche Dopingvorfälle, für die es Hinweise gibt, dass sie von CELAD nicht nach Vorschrift bearbeitet wurden bzw. sogar mit Absicht verschleppt, verzögert oder ignoriert wurden. Dopingverfahren hätten somit nicht stattgefunden. RELEVO behauptete zudem, die WADA habe, obwohl informiert, nichts dagegen unternommen.
Zitate aus dem REVELO-Artikel vom 27.12.2024 (google-Übersetzung):
Spanish sport has several positive doping cases without sanctioning and the World Anti-Doping Agency knows it. With the connivance of the largest anti-doping institution on a global level, with José Luis Terreros at the head of the highest Spanish anti-doping body (CELAD) and with Jesús Muñoz-Guerra as head of the Doping Control Department (DCD), the Spanish agency has left several positive cases unpunished in recent years. But how is this possible? Although transparency in anti-doping matters should be the maximum, the truth is that its absence and an exquisite handling of the fissures of the documentary bureaucracy have contributed to our sport not being clean. Or, at least, not completely
THE EXPIRATION OF COMMUNICATION TO AVOID SANCTION
One of the formulas that Relevo’s investigation has been able to confirm is that in the face of some adverse results, the Spanish agency let the maximum time allowed by the regulations – one year – pass between the opening of the file and the communication to the athlete…
They waited until day 365, as allowed by the regulations, to send the notification of the sanction from the time the file was opened. However, instead of doing it electronically, which allows for immediate delivery, it was done via postal mail, so the letter took several days to reach the athlete. In this way, when she received the sanction, she was able to appeal to the Administrative Court of Sport (TAD), which ruled in her favour because the sanction had been communicated outside the legal deadline and therefore, she was free of punishment. …
POSITIVES IN THE „DRAWER“ WITHOUT OPENING A SANCTIONING FILE
Another striking case was that of the national team athlete Patrick Chinedu Ike, who tested positive in a control in 2019 and, as eldiario.es has published, did not receive any sanction despite having tested positive for Endogenous AAS, Norandrosterone and Noretiocholanolone. In this case, the CELAD did not open a file, never sanctioned the athlete and therefore allowed him to continue competing. … the positive test was published in the athlete’s profile in the ADAMS system, … and despite this, the highest international anti-doping body [WADA] did not act to ensure that there was a sanction by CELAD and did not prohibit the athlete from continuing to compete until this past summer. …
RETROACTIVE THERAPEUTIC USE AUTHORIZATIONS WITHOUT TIME LIMIT
Another method used to hide positives, as Relevo already demonstrated in the case of the marathon runner and now national record holder >>> Majida Maayouf, is through retroactive authorisations, technically known as Therapeutic Use Authorisations (AUT). These permits were created so that athletes who needed them due to medical prescription could request – and justify – permission to consume some prohibited substances. In exceptional situations, they are also granted once the athlete has had an adverse result.
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In the case of the Basque athlete, Muñoz-Guerra informed Maayouf of her positive result and offered her the possibility of „covering“ the adverse result, as stated in the communication, through a retroactive TUE. The case ended up being „closed“ by the head of the Doping Control Department himself with the sending of a certificate of the existence of a TUE to the athlete that did not even cover the date of the test. In response to Relevo’s question about this key detail, CELAD pointed out that it was an error by an official and that the authorization agreed by the independent committee in charge of this work actually began a year before the date detailed in the document sent – March 21, 2020 and not 2021 – and, therefore, with a retroactivity of 18 months from its issuance.
However, although in itself the justification granted a year and a half later would alter the exceptionality of the permits a posteriori and, therefore, the objective of catching the cheaters, to this day the alleged resolution of the Therapeutic Use Authorization Committee of that October 29, 2021 remains to be made public, neither by the athlete – who after achieving the Spanish record in the Valencia Marathon undertook to disclose – nor by CELAD itself. We would be facing the third positive doping test of a Spanish athlete (nationalized in June 2023) without sanction.
In this case, too, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which this newspaper contacted, was aware that the permit granted to Maayouf was retroactive for a year and a half. …
BIOLOGICAL PASSPORT POSITIVES IN LEGAL LIMBO
… The director of CELAD himself, José Luis Terreros, confessed in an interview in the newspaper Marca at the beginning of 2022 that there are still „five or six“ cases of Biological Passport without sanction. Almost two years later, everything remains the same.
SILENCE OF THE WORLD ANTI-DOPING-AGENCY
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has documents that prove positive doping without sanction in Spanish sport. The entity – independent – in charge of promoting, coordinating and monitoring these prohibited practices in sport has allowed Spain not to sanction athletes who have breached anti-doping regulations, at least in the last five years.
After months of investigation, this media has been able to access the documentation that proves that several open files that were never sanctioned and others with dubious procedures were registered in the ADAMS system, the system that centralizes all information on anti-doping matters worldwide and that WADA must supervise for its rigorous compliance. Therefore, WADA knew and was aware that there had been positives in Spain without sanctioning for several years and, either it has turned a deaf ear, or it does not have the tools to control bad practices within its own system.
ISOLATED CASES OR HABITUAL PRACTICE?
The big question left by the lack of transparency in anti-doping matters is what led the highest Spanish anti-doping body to a management that allowed second-level athletes, such as Chinedu or Majida herself in 2020, to end up avoiding a sanction for doping. Is it part of a habitual practice that hides positives from top-level athletes or are they isolated cases? The reality is that we have to go back to the beginning of 2016, before Terreros took over as director of CELAD, to find the last sanction of an elite athlete in Spain. The last known cases were Ángel Mullera, sanctioned for fleeing a control, and the athlete Josephine Onyia. On the other hand, CELAD has sanctioned foreign athletes such as the Argentine footballer Papu Gómez last October.
What is clear is that the anti-doping fight, which should be the most transparent, has become one of the most opaque systems for finding out about and learning about its work. For example, until this year it was not obligatory to publish sanctions that were not ‚very serious‘ through the Sanciona2 platform. Along the same lines, consultations with official bodies are full of bureaucratic obstacles, refusals and long waiting processes despite the Law of Transparency and Good Government. For its part, WADA, as Relevo confirmed a few months ago with the ‚Majida File‘, offers answers that only refer to CELAD itself, despite being an involved party and pointed out by the information provided.
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REAKTIONEN
Die WADA wies die harten Vorwürfe von REVELO zurück und betonte sehr wohl die spanischen Irregularitäten im Auge zu haben und würde gegen diese entschieden vorgehen.
WADA: WADA issues statement related to the National Anti-Doping Organization of Spain, 5.1.2024:
WADA strongly rejects the implication that it would ever turn a blind eye to any valid cases. The Agency confirms that all cases have been repeatedly followed up through the results management process and some are still pending.
Indeed, in addition to pursuing CELAD on apparently delayed pending cases, WADA took the highly unusual action in 2023, of taking away three Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) cases from it and handing them over to the relevant International Federations to deal with instead. In another two such ABP cases, WADA imposed strict deadlines on CELAD for the rendering of a decision.
WADA can also confirm that for several months, as part of its compliance monitoring program, it has been aware of ongoing problems related to CELAD, including several issues to do with testing and results management. Related to that, WADA provided to CELAD a corrective action report that needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency, including with respect to a number of delayed cases. This matter is ongoing.
WADA still has further questions for CELAD and the anti-doping system in Spain, in particular regarding the way the country’s 2021 Anti-Doping Law is being implemented. While WADA supported the passing of the legislation, it has since become apparent that the way the law is being interpreted and practically implemented is not in accordance with the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). …
WADA President Witold Bańka said: “… We are well aware of deep-seated issues within Spanish anti-doping. I am disappointed with the level of cooperation we have received from CELAD as we seek to improve the system for Spanish athletes. The fact that there are positive cases that have not been handled in a timely fashion, despite regular follow up by WADA, is unacceptable.
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Auch die Spanische Regierung und CELAD reagierten mit Stellungnahmen:
AP: Spain’s government asks head of its anti-doping to resign amid accusations of irregularities, 5.1.2024
CELAD: COMUNICADO DE LA DIRECCIÓN DE LA COMISIÓN ESPAÑOLA PARA LA LUCHA ANTIDOPAJE EN EL DEPORTE (CELAD), 10.1.2024
Presseartikel:
football espana: Spanish Anti-Doping agency have overlook positive drug tests of athletes, 28.12.2023
Honest Sport: Nearly zero blood tests in La Liga, Thirteen doping positives in Spanish football
insidethegames.biz: Five years of irregular testing by Spanish anti-doping agency, 1.1.2024
athletics illustrated: Media company Relevo alleges World and Spanish anti-doping agencies allowed positive drug tests to pass, 2.1.2024
SZ: Kommt einem spanisch vor, 10.1.2024
Der in einigen Texten angesprochene EU-Evaluierungsbericht von 2022:
>>> EVALUATION REPORT OF THE MONITORING GROUP (T-DO / EVALUATION VISIT TO SPAIN 18 – 20 OCTOBER 2022
Auch Athletinnen und Athleten meldeten sich. Am 14. Februar veröffentlichte Geher lvaro Martín Uriol auf X/Twitter eine Stellungnahme zu den Vorfällen, die 78 spanische Athlet*innen unterschrieben haben: >>> Álvaro Martín Uriol
>>> die Stellungnahme: REIVINDICACION DE LOS ATLETAS
>>> Übersetzung ins Englische: CLAIM OF ATHLETES
infobae: Un grupo de 78 atletas españoles exigen al Gobierno „medidas necesarias y urgentes“ contra el dopaje, 14.2.2023
insidethegames.biz: Spanish athletes demand „honesty and transparency“ from doping agency, 15.2.2023
schnelle Folgen für CELAD – Personalwechsel: José Luis Terreros, Jesús Muñoz-Guerra, Ramón Sánchez Gálvez
Am 26.1.2024 wurde bekannt, dass der Direktor der CELAD zurücktreten musste.
„Terreros leaves his second stage at the head of anti-doping management in Spain. In 2014 with Ana Muñoz as general director of sports of the CSD, he was already dismissed for similar reasons. However, José Ramón Lete, Secretary of State for Sport in 2017, rescued him as head of CELAD, a position he has held for almost seven years, the same number of years that have passed since the last sanction for doping against an elite athlete in Spain. The new director of CELAD will be Silvia Calzón.“ (google-Übersetzung Text Revelo)
REVELO: Terreros cesa como director de la agencia española antidopaje y le sustituirá Silvia Calzón
SZ: Chef der Anti-Doping-Agentur muss gehen
Mitte März 2024 mussten auch Jesús Muñoz-Guerra, Leiter der Doping-Kontroll-Departments (DCD), und Ramón Sánchez Gálvez, CELAD-Generalsekretär, die Agentur verlassen. Neuer CELAD-Direktor wurde Silvia Calzón.
Marca: La Celad sustituye a su jefe de departamento de control, 18.3.2024
RELEVO: Muñoz-Guerra dejará de ser jefe de control del dopaje español , 18.3.2024
Zitate aus dem RELEVO-Artikel vom 18.3.2024 (google-Übersetzung):
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The number 3 [Jesús Muñoz-Guerra] in the CELAD power scale in the last decade has been decisive in most of the more than questionable practices uncovered in recent months by this newspaper. For example, and starting from the beginning of the investigations carried out by Relevo, Muñoz-Guerra was the one who managed the case of the marathon runner and now national record holder, Majida Maayouf, after her positive test during a control in a competition in Germany and which ended up being ‚covered‘ by a Therapeutic Use Authorization (AUT) a year later without any explanation. In addition, in the documentation to which this newspaper had access, Muñoz-Guerra was the one who informed this athlete of the situation and who urged her to justify the use of Terbutaline to „cover up the positive.“ To date, no one has yet been able to present the TUE certificate with the correct date, something that raised all the alarms with the arrival of Silvia Calzón.
But the athlete’s process was not the only one. The modus operandi in this type of case was common during her direction in the Doping Control Department since, as this media discovered a few weeks ago, it was Muñoz-Guerra who, arbitrarily, decided whether or not similar requests were considered for the awarding of TUEs.
Along the same lines, Jesús Muñoz-Guerra arbitrarily concealed failed controls of athletes – the same ones for which Mo Katir was sanctioned by the International Athletics Federation (World Athletics) – that should have been registered in the supervision system of the world agency (ADAMS) and, in some cases, would have motivated a similar sanction by accumulating more than three infractions for failure to locate in a period of 12 months. That is to say, there are Spanish athletes who should have been sanctioned like Katir but the management of the Spanish anti-doping agency prevented it.
Another issue that worries the new management of CELAD is the concealment of positive results of several athletes who never received a sanction. With methods such as letting the maximum period pass between the opening of a file and the communication of the sanction, the non-opening of any sanctioning file after receiving the adverse result or directly, leaving it in a drawer as in the case of the also athlete >>> Patrick Chinedu, uncovered by eldiario.es. Among the cases without sanction, it should also be noted that Spain decided not to open sanctioning files in the cases of doping by Biological Passport.
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Both the former director, who also resigned from his post due to the public disclosure of these malpractices, and Muñoz-Guerra were aware that the controls were often carried out by a single agent – contrary to Spanish regulations – and therefore allowed the cancellation of any positive results detected.
In addition, it should be remembered that Muñoz-Guerra is currently accused, along with another official, of a case of document falsification. Both were reported by an athlete who was initially subject to disciplinary proceedings by the agency when the review document for her positive result, which serves to identify possible irregularities, indicated that the anti-doping test had been carried out with only one control agent and not two, as indicated by the regulations until November 2023.
Relevo also echoed a few weeks ago >>> the case of Eteki Yan, a footballer whose positive result was shelved due to a tip-off from someone from CELAD, who alerted Almería, the club where he played at the time, so that he could defend himself. Despite not doing so in time or form, the footballer was not sanctioned.
At an international level, a few weeks ago h [Jesús Muñoz-Guerra] was forced to leave the group of experts that was to be in charge of reanalysing all the controls at Rio 2016 after the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Testing Agency consulted on Relevo’s publications.*
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* Jesús Muñoz-Guerra war von der ITA in ein 4köpfiges Expertengremium berufen worden welches für die Planung der Neuanalysen aller während der Olympischen Spiele 2016 in Rio durchgeführten Dopingkontrollen verantwortlich war mit dem Ziel, vor Paris 2024 die Proben aller Athleten zu überprüfen, die in Paris starten könnten. (RELEVO, 13.12.2023)