MoU between IADO and PERSANI on Anti-Doping Activities

Jakarta, 1 September 2023

IADO and PERSANI (Indonesian Gymnastics Federation) signed a MoU on Anti-Doping Activity. The agreement was signed by Chairman of IADO and Chairwoman of PERSANI Ms. Ita Yuliati on September 1^st,  2023 at the Office of IADO in Jakarta. Prior to the signing ceremony, Ms. Ita Yuliati expressed her appreciation to IADO enabling her national federation to have broader overview of anti-doping activities, including various activities conducted by any athlete which could be regarded as potential violations to anti-doping regulation. Ms. Linda Rosalina (Director of Testing) accompanying Chairman of IADO and Secretary General of IADO explained that for instance IADO used to recognize to have difficulties to strongly contact any certain athlete to fulfil so-called “whereabouts information”. If she / he (athlete) fails to fulfil it many times, he / she would be imposed a sanction according to the World Anti-Doping Code.  Whereabouts information gives the Anti-Doping Organization (ADO) the ability to locate athletes with no notice, which is vital to testing athletes who choose to cheat themselves by doping. Knowing where athletes can be found for testing is crucial for ensuring effective anti-doping programs. Such important information should be informed many times to all leaders and their athlete support persons of national federation in order to avoid any mis-communication that doping relates to consuming any prohibited substance only.

On the contrary, Chairman of IADO also express his appreciation to Chairwoman of PERSANI, because that signing has added more national federations and national sports committee having agreements with IADO since June 5^th, 2022. He also said to Chairwomen of PERSANI that signing of MoU is mandatory to be conducted in conjunction to the Code instead of IADO itself. By signing the MoU, IADO could show WADA how high their related parties (national sports stakeholders in Indonesia) support the compliance with the Code, because a compliance does not relate to how many athletes  whose samples have been collected, but it also relates to various aspects consisting of regulation (including setting up of MoU), budget, human resources, independent statues of organization, routine activities of collecting samples both ICT  (In Competition Testing) and or OOCT  (Out of Competition Testing) or their supporting persons who have been regarded to understand  anti-doping regulations,  and others. In addition, he strongly asked PERSANI not to hesitate to ask IADO on any matters of anti-doping in order to minimize the sanction. Such appeal was also raised to all national federations to have broader information on anti-doping activities. Based on Article 2 of the World Anti-Doping Code, doping is not only an identical act of consuming prohibited substance, these are also the other violations such as the following ones:

1. Use or attempted use by an athlete of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method.
2. Evading, refusing or failing to submit to sample collection by an athlete.
3. Whereabouts failures by an athlete.
4. Tampering or attempted tampering with any part of doping control by an athlete or other person.
5. Possession of a prohibited substance or a prohibited method by an athlete or athlete support person
6. Trafficking or attempted trafficking in any prohibited substance or prohibited method by an athlete or other person.
7. Administration or attempted administration by an athlete or other person to any athlete in-competition of any prohibited substance or prohibited method, or administration or attempted administration to any athlete out-of-competition of any prohibited substance or any prohibited method that is prohibited out-of-competition.
8. Complicity or attempted complicity by an athlete or other person.
9. Prohibited association by an athlete or other person.
10. Acts by an athlete or other person to discourage or retaliate against reporting to authorities.

Accordingly, until today the number of sports organizations having engaged their agreement to IADO is as follows:

1. KONI (National Sports Committee of Indonesia).
2. KOI (National Olympic Committee of Indonesia).
3. NPC (National Paralympic Committee of Indonesia).
4. PSSI (Football Association of Indonesia).
5. PASI (Athletics Federation of Indonesia).
6. PERPANI (Indonesia Archery Association).
7. PRSI (Indonesian Swimming Association).
8. PABSI (Indonesian Weightlifting Association).
9. FPTI (Indonesian Climbing Federation).
10. PERBASI (Indonesian Basketball Association).
11. WI (Indonesian Wushu Association).
12. PRBASASI (Indonesian Baseball and Softball Association).
13. PRUI (Indonesian Rugby Football Union).
14. PODSI (Indonesian Rowing Association).
15. ISSI (Indonesia Cycling Federation).
16. PBVSI (Indonesian Volleyball Federation).
17. PERSANI (Indonesian Gymnastics Federation).

For any national federations which are not mentioned on the above-mentioned list could be stated as those which have not been tied to MoU with IADO.

It is already mentioned on Article 20.3 of the Code on Roles and Responsibilities of International Federation, which among others states that the roles and responsibilities of International Federation are as follows:

• 20.3.1   To adopt    and implement   anti-doping policies and rules which conform with the Code and International Standards.
• 20.3.2   To require,      as a condition     of membership,   that the policies, rules and programs of their National Federations and other members are in compliance with the Code and the International Standards, and to take appropriate action to enforce such compliance; areas of compliance shall include but not be limited to: (i) requiring that their National Federations conduct Testing only under the documented authority of their International Federation and use their National Anti-Doping Organization or other Sample collection authority to collect Samples in compliance with the International Standard for Testing and Investigations; (ii) requiring that their National Federations recognize the authority of the National Anti-Doping Organization in their country in accordance with Article 5.2.1 and assist as appropriate with the National Anti-Doping Organization’s implementation of the national Testing program for their sport; (iii) requiring that their National Federations analyze all Samples collected using a WADA-accredited or WADA-approved laboratory in accordance with Article 6.1; and (iv) requiring that any national level anti-doping rule violation cases discovered by their National Federations are adjudicated by an Operationally Independent hearing panel in accordance with Article 8.1 and the International Standard for Results Management.

Accordingly, each national federation is mandatory to implement their obligations as these are imposed by their related-international federations on compliance with their national anti-doping regulations. In addition, based on the following experiences and witnesses raised by certain national federation in Indonesia, which have been tied to MoU with IADO:

• MoU is actually compiled by taking into account the principle of equal treatment, egalitarian, and mutual respect for each other. On this context, IADO cannot impose any certain sanction separately which does not refer to the Code and its related-regulation. 
• Generally, there is something which is sometimes questioned by national federation on the proposed MoU dealing with Article 2 of point (b) stating as follows: THE SECOND PARTY shall provide information to THE FIRST PARTY on financial condition and other incentive provided to a certain athlete in accordance to the national financial assistance. IADO has taken such article referring to the following article only mentioned in International Standard for Testing and Investigations (ISTI), on Article 4.2 on Risk Assessment, in particular on point (4.2.1) mentioning: “The starting point of the Test Distribution Plan shall be a considered Risk Assessment, conducted in good faith. This assessment shall take into account (at a minimum) the following information:  …. (c) he rewards and/or potential incentives for doping available at the different levels of the sport(s)/sport discipline (s).  
• On this release, IADO is very pleased to inform that IADO is not on its capacity to take responsibility like PPATK (Indonesian Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre / INTRAC) whose duty is among others to be responsible for financial intelligence. However, in case there is any athlete violating anti-doping regulations, in accordance with WADA regulations, it is possible to have financial data on its investigation process according to ISTI as far as it is instructed by WADA.

Jakarta, 1 September 2023.

Chairman of IADO,
Gatot S. Dewa Broto