Inefficiency of the Anti-Doping System: Cost Reduction Proposals

Abstract

The anti-doping system, under the guidance of WADA, costs at least $228 million per year, mostly to cover the cost of performing about 270,000 doping tests. However, “testing has not proven to be particularly effective in detecting dopers/cheats” (WADA). It is suggested, competitions of doping-endangered disciplines be redesigned. Sports with numerous doping cases should be temporarily excluded from the Olympic program and not be televised. Pecuniary fines should be higher and collection guaranteed by a deferred compensation model. Sports with multiple doping offenses should bear most of the anti-doping costs. Finally, appropriate tenders should guarantee fees of anti-doping laboratories develop more competitively.

Keywords :

• doping
• test
• costs
• WADA
• pecuniary disincentives
• deferred compensation model
• competition for laboratories

THE AUTHORS

Wolfgang Maennig is a professor at the Department of Economics of Hamburg University. He was a visiting professor at the American University in Dubai as well as in Berkeley (USA), in Stellenbosch (South Africa) and Istanbul, at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and at the University of Economics Bratislava. He was also visiting scholar at International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., and at Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt. His research concentrates on sport economics, transport economics and real estate economics and has been published in numerous academic journals. He is co-editor of the International Handbook on the Economics of Mega Sporting Events. Wolfgang Maennig has worked as an expert for many bids of large sport events, for example, the Olympic bids of Berlin 2000, Leipzig 2012, Munich 2018, and the Athletics World Cup Berlin 2009. He was Olympic Champion (rowing, eight with coxwain) at the Olympics 1988 in Seoul and president of the German Rowing Federation, 1995–2001. In 2000, he received the Olympic Order.

Notes

6 WADA 2014 at http://www.wada-ama.org/en/ADAMS/QA-on-ADAMS/, from March 14, 2014.

7 See warnings issued by WADA.

8 Director general of WADA, David Howman, believes that one in 10 athletes are cheating (Magnay 2012). For further documentation see Dilger et al. (2007). As an aside: of US universities surveyed, 18% of 1,253 first year students admitted using non-prescribed stimulants, primarily to enhance their studies (Koole 2008).

9 These opportunity costs might be low in the normal situation of high performance sports where only the most talented athletes compete (Bourg 2000, 172).

10 For a description of the doping milieu in cycling and a range of people who make up the “doping” cycle see Marcur (2014): “…virtually every person knew —doctors, soigneurs, riders, team managers, mechanics.”

11 WADA Working Group (2013) demands: “Whistle-blowing should be encouraged and mechanisms established to make such activity possible and productive.” Australian National Olympic Committee thinks about criminal penalties for athletes who refuse to cooperate with investigations, for example, by withholding information.