MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. Russia will continue making its annual financial contributions to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) although the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was declared last week as non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, WADA’s press service announced in a statement to TASS on Wednesday.

National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs) are obliged to make annual contributions to WADA’s budget. This year, WADA anticipated to rake in about $39 million in contributions and Russia was among the first ones to make a contribution of $1,015,977 in late March.

"Government contributions are not linked to the compliance of NADOs so yes, Russia will still be expected to make its annual contribution to WADA," the statement reads.

The press office of the world’s governing anti-doping body in sports also added in its statement that Russia’s "contribution for 2021 is USD 1,091,877."

Last Thursday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld WADA’s decision on a number of sanctions against Russian sports and declared RUSADA as non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code.

The Swiss-based court said in a statement on December 17 that the CAS Panel "unanimously determined RUSADA to be non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) in connection with its failure to procure the delivery of the authentic LIMS data (Laboratory Information Management System) and underlying analytical data of the former Moscow Laboratory to WADA" in the period between 2012 and 2015. The Russian authorities deny accusations of manipulation.

On Monday, WADA’s press service told TASS that RUSADA was still eligible to continue with its work on doping testing of national athletes, despite the CAS ruling.

WADA-RUSADA case

On December 9, 2019, the WADA Executive Committee (ExCo) approved the recommendations of its Compliance Review Committee (CRC) to revoke the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency and to strip Russia of the right to participate in major international sports tournaments, including the Olympics, Paralympics and world championships, for a period of four years.

The WADA ExCo also ruled that Russia must not host, or bid for or be granted the right to host any major international sports tournament in this four-year period. Russian state officials, as well as the officials of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), were banned from attending all major international sports tournaments for this four-year period.

The RUSADA Supervisory Board recommended on December 19, 2019 the agency’s Founders Board to disagree with WADA’s sanctions against Russian sports and to take this case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland’s Lausanne. On December 27, RUSADA sent an official notification of its disagreement to WADA and the global anti-doping body turned this case over to the Swiss-based court.

CAS held hearings on a legal debate between RUSADA and WADA in the period between November 2 and 5, 2020. Appointed judges in the CAS case between RUSADA and WADA were Mark Williams (Australia), Luigi Fumagalli (Italy) and Hamid Gharavi (France).