http://wadawatch.blogspot.com/2010/02/afld...-last-days.html


Times are tough


... and the notion of attending to the foibles of the anti-doping world take some funny twists sometimes. Yet a recent (within the hour) search of information regarding the Tour de France 2010, came across this stunning article, by Cyclingnews:

Huge funding cuts threaten future of AFLD

According to the article, "the French government recently announced that it cancelled its plans to increase taxes on television rights in sports, which would have supplied the agency with 4 million Euro of its budget." Currently budgeted (according to the author) at Euro 8.7 million, the AFLD and its Directeur, Pierre Bordry, are facing budget cuts that threaten its very existence.

Could this be due to the fiasco between it and the UCI, as reported by WADAwatch and other media last fall? Could it be due to its six-month report for Q1 and Q2 2009, which revealed a huge amount of 'cannaboid' use amongst French athletes?

[url="http://www.afld.fr/docs/actu96_bilan1ersemestre2009.2.pdf"]
CONTROLS UNDERTAKEN BY THE AFLD DURING THE FIRST SEMESTER 2009[/url]
(Report in FR)

How powerful (need one ask?) are the French Football (soccer) leagues and teams, as well as the networks that carry their games? Let Cyclingnews tell us:

Because there is no guarantee that the AFLD will still obtain the promised finance, Bordry questioned his government's willingness to continue an independent fight against doping in sports. When the government announced its plans to increase TV rights taxes, senior officials of French soccer declared that it wasn't up to them to finance the fight against doping in France.

No mention of French Rugby (nearly as widely broadcast as French football); nor the lesser TV sports like basketball, handball, equestrian and NOT Alpine skiing, which went off French TV many years ago.

More questions arise, and this brief post may require intense follow-ups in the near future.

Thanks ORG.

Hopefully we can agree that independent of stances on Lance and Landis, that losing AFLD is not a good thing for sport and cycling.

Not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, nor force a consensus where there may be none, but this is very unfortunate news.

Dave.

You do realize that story is from January 2009, don't you?

Susan

Apparently not.

Thanks.

Dave.

Apparently I'm confused too. The WADA Watch post is from February 24, 2010, and the dateline for the CyclingNews.com article is January 28, 2010:



The only element of the cites that dates to 2009 is the AFLD report and if that report is for Q1/Q2 2009, then how could it possibly be written in January 2009?

Perhaps, it was read just a bit too quickly ?

So it is, my apologies.

Susan

This is confusing.
Are we driving the DeLorean or not?!

Time to throw more garbage into the flux capacitor.

Dave.