National Rugby League CEO Todd Greenberg on Sunday "defended the game's commercial links to gambling" in the wake of the allegations leveled at Wests Tigers player Tim Simona, insisting administrators were "working hard" to maintain "a really strong balance" between the sport's integrity and catering for thousands of supporters who "enjoyed punting on the competition." The NRL last year agreed to a A$60M deal with Sportsbet, making the corporate bookmaker the league's official betting partner. Greenberg said that "the misconduct of individual players did not mean the NRL should scale back its relationships with gambling outlets" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 2/26).
Mo Farah's coach, Alberto Salazar, "may have broken anti-doping rules to boost the performance of some of his athletes," according to a leaked report. Salazar has been under investigation since a BBC Panorama program made allegations about drug use at his U.S. training base. Salazar reportedly "routinely gave Farah and other athletes legal prescription drugs with potentially harmful side-effects without a justifiable medical reason" (BBC, 2/26).
WADA admitted that Richard McLaren’s '16 report on the alleged use of doping by Russian athletes is "not sufficient to bring successful cases," the IOC said. IOC Dir-General Christophe De Kepper said in a letter, "At the recent meeting (21 February) held by WADA in Lausanne to 'provide assistance to IFs [International Federations] regarding how to analyse and interpret the evidence,' it was admitted by WADA that in many cases the evidence provided may not be sufficient to bring successful cases" (RT, 2/25).
