Following a circular vote of its Foundation Board, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) today removed the Spanish National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) from the list of Signatories deemed non-compliant with the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code (Code).
At its meeting of 18 November 2015, WADA’s Foundation Board followed the recommendation of its independent Compliance Review Committee (CRC) and placed the Spanish NADO on the compliance "watchlist", given that the Code had not been implemented in the national legislation of Spain due to the absence of a government in the country. On 18 March 2016, at the expiration of the four-month deadline for "watchlist–Signatories", the Spanish NADO automatically became non-compliant. The NADO has remained in this status since then.
On 17 February 2017, the Spanish Council of Ministers adopted a "Royal Decree-Law", the content of which is in line with the Code, in order to incorporate the Code into the Spanish legislation. This "decree-law" took effect immediately and therefore the Code was implemented into the Spanish legislation. However, in accordance with relevant government procedures brought to WADA’s attention by the Spanish NADO, the "decree-law" still has to be formally ratified by the Spanish Parliament within one month from the date of its adoption. If the "decree-law" is not ratified by the Parliament within the one month period, the Spanish NADO will automatically revert to being non-compliant.
As stipulated in Article 23.5.5 of the Code, WADA will now report the removal of the Spanish NADO from the list of non-compliant Signatories to the Sports Movement and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
WADA continues to work with the remaining non-compliant signatories (the NADOs of Brazil and Russia) to address their outstanding issues.
For more information, please contact:
Ben Nichols
Senior Manager
Media Relations and Communications
Tel: + 1-514-904-8225
E-mail: media@wada-ama.org
25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only