Returning drugs cheats will not receive funding, says UK Sport

 

Dwain Chambers will be denied public or lottery funding even if his lifetime Olympic ban is lifted. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images

The lifetime ban on serious drug cheats receiving public funding will be maintained even if the British Olympic Association is forced to scrap its lifetime exclusion for doping offenders, the head of UK Sport has insisted.

The BOA faces a battle in court after the World Anti-Doping Agency ruled that its bylaw violates the global code. Liz Nicholl, chief executive of funding body UK Sport, said that the policy of a life ban on funding for any athlete who has received a two-year suspension for a doping offence will be maintained – whatever the outcome of the BOA case.

Nicholl said: "This a very different thing to the BOA by-law. This is a very clear rule we have which is entirely to do with public funding. The principle here is that public investment is a privilege and not a right, and a ban from public funding does not restrict an athlete plying their trade and competing at all events.

"It just means they cannot be a recipient of public funding via UK Sport. A two-year ban means a significant doping offence and it is then our funding principle kicks in, which is a lifetime ban from receiving public funding for sport."

Nicholl said giving public or Lottery cash to athletes who had been found guilty of serious doping offences would undermine the whole process of providing funding for Olympic sports.

She added: "It would undermine the whole of our investment if we were seen to be making any inappropriate investments, so we have to draw a line at what we feel is appropriate for having public funding.That line is where there has been a significant doping offence carrying a ban of two years or more."

The BOA is due to receive the full reasons for Wada's foundation board ruling their bylaw as being non-compliant with the anti-doping code later this week or next week.

Once those findings have been reviewed, an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne is almost certain, with a decision expected in around three months' time.

Most of those involved in anti-doping expect the decision to go against the BOA, which would open the way for the cyclist David Millar, sprinter Dwain Chambers and shot-putter Carl Myerscough to compete at the London Olympics next summer.