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Speaking to Reuters during a WADA meeting in Lausanne,
Switzerland, Tygart said as long as sports bodies were
represented on WADA, the anti-doping organization could not
deliver on its promise to crack down on cheats.
"It is the fox guarding the hen house," Tygart told Reuters when
asked whether WADA was independent. "Clearly not. No question
about it."
WADA has been in the spotlight since 2015 over a Russian
state-backed doping scandal that involved more than 1,000
athletes and led to the suspension of the country's athletics
federation and its anti-doping agency.
Russia's track and field athletes were banned from last year's
Rio de Janeiro Olympics but the International Olympic Committee
refused to exclude its entire Olympic team, despite being urged
to do so by WADA.
WADA's foundation board and executive committee are composed
equally of representatives from the Olympic movement and
governments.
"We have to get clear first what WADA's role is. It has to be
that of a global regulator and then we can see what it costs to
fund this," Tygart said.
He said money, a main concern for WADA, would be made available
from the world of sport and its stakeholders like broadcasters
and sponsors once their product was protected by an independent
organization.
Tygart, who was a strong supporter of a blanket ban on Russian
athletes in Rio, said WADA should be able to hand out sanctions
for non-compliance to countries or federations, something it
cannot do at the moment.
He said in that way sport would be protecting its own product
more effectively and fans would get exactly what was advertised.
His comments come three days after the United States Olympic
Committee issued a position paper calling for an independent
global anti-doping agency.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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