The article is specifically about doping in horse racing, but one quote in the article caught my eye as potentially relevant to any organization overseeing a sport- the bold is mine. This part of the article is the point I thought may carry over to the ability of a sport specific organization to effectively police its own members, in our case that entity being USEF.
“I’ve been told that it’s the wild, wild West,” Travis Tygart, chief executive of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said of horse racing. “It’s 1,000 times worse than anything we’ve seen because people in the sport can go out and bet on themselves. [B]Our experience has shown that it’s impossible for anyone to both promote a sport and attempt to police the drug issue at the same time. There’s a massive conflict of interest.”
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency took over Olympic drug testing in this country after doping scandals in the 1990s involving American athletes cast suspicion around the globe. Other countries wondered how the U.S. Olympic Committee could oversee the testing of its own athletes when it had a vested interest in the success of those athletes. And those other countries were right; it couldn’t.[/B]
Link to the entire article:
http://www.boston.com/sports/horse-racing/2014/06/04/horse-racing-still-stumbling-anti-drug-push/CUihjJopgINY8XQtYoCo9I/story.html
