The Doping Dispute is Ongoing in Paris

This week marked another important milestone in FIFA’s love affair with Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, soccer’s global body announced that Aramco, the kingdom’s state-owned oil company, had signed on as a “key global partner” for the next four years.

Aramco joins long-standing partners Adidas and Coca-Cola as well as the most recent newcomer Qatar Airways in the top group of FIFA sponsors. The contract only runs until 2027, but with the Men’s World Cup heading to Saudi Arabia in 2034, it’s safe to assume the relationship will likely last well into the next decade.

It comes just a week after the country’s sovereign wealth fund agreed to sponsor the Madrid Open, the Gulf state’s latest foray into tennis.

After Saudi Arabia’s aggressive (and costly) attempt to disrupt the world of golf by building a new rival to the sport’s existing power structures, decision-makers in the country may have decided that it is easier – and cheaper – to move within System to work instead of outside.

This week we take a look at the crisis engulfing the sports world’s premier anti-doping organization and the latest plans for the Chicago Bears’ mega-project of a new stadium. Continue reading – Josh Noble, sports editor

The Chinese swimming dispute plunges WADA into a crisis

It’s been a busy week for the World Anti-Doping Agency, better known as Wada. The Montreal-based organization has been under fire since last weekend, when the New York Times and German television network ARD revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned drug in early 2020 but were then cleared to compete. Some won medals at the Tokyo Olympics a year later.

China’s own anti-doping agency reported the results to Wada but said they were due to accidental exposure. Public health officials said they found traces of the heart drug trimetazidine, which increases blood flow, in a spice jar in a hotel kitchen. Pandemic-related lockdowns made independent investigations impossible.

Witold Bańka, Wada president, told reporters this week that there was “no credible way to dispute the contamination theory” and that the agency had “interrogated every piece of evidence.” Wada’s legal and scientific experts then lined up to explain why the test results were consistent with accidental exposure, why athletes were not automatically banned and why any attempt at a legal challenge would have been doomed to failure.

China’s Foreign Ministry said this week it was taking a “zero tolerance” approach to doping, blaming “inaccurate reporting.”

However, the incident sparked outrage in some places. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency – commonly known as USADA – has led the charge and called for an overhaul of Wada, while several Olympians have complained about double standards in the application of Wada’s own rules.

On Thursday, WADA bowed to pressure and hired an independent prosecutor to review the agency’s handling of the case. The probe is expected to last two months.

However, the move did nothing to appease USADA, which immediately accused Wada of selecting its own lawyer as part of a “circle the wagon exercise.” “By calling this an ‘independent’ investigation, WADA leadership is attempting to dupe us,” USADA said.

Trimetazidine has been in the headlines before, most notably when then-15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for the substance during the 2022 Winter Games. She blamed it on a cutting board her grandfather used to chop up his medication, but received a lengthy ban. Chinese swimmer Sun Yang was also briefly suspended for taking the same drug, even though his team doctor said it had been prescribed to him to treat a heart condition. He was later banned for several years for a separate doping violation.

All of this comes just three months before the opening ceremony of Paris 2024. The city’s new aquatic center is the only venue built specifically for this summer’s Games. It already seems likely that it will win another award – as the centerpiece of an increasingly bitter global dispute over fairness in sport that will continue to drag on.

The Chicago Bears donate $5 billion to taxpayers

This week, the NFL’s Chicago Bears and Chicago’s mayor unveiled a stunning, roughly $5 billion proposal for a new football stadium on the shores of Lake Michigan. The plans are extensive, with those behind them claiming the construction will provide the city with an $8 billion economic boost, while the completed project could bring an additional $456 million annually to the local economy.

The so-called Burnham Park Project, with a mix of green space and transportation infrastructure, is the second big headline for the Bears this week. With the first pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, the team secured highly touted Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback from the University of Southern California, Caleb Williams.

The proposal was met with skepticism by other government officials, including the state Senate president and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. “I wonder if this is a good deal for taxpayers,” Pritzker told local media.

To that end, the Bears have pledged to cover “more than $2 billion” of the stadium’s costs, estimated to be about $3.2 billion of the project’s total price tag, and the team will borrow from the NFL for the amount Apply for $300 million.

This means that the taxpayer bears around half of the total costs. The club is asking the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority for $900 million in additional funding, which it says can be covered by an existing 2 percent hotel tax and public funds for infrastructure improvements.

Chicago’s proposal comes just weeks after Missouri residents voted against a sales tax measure that would have funded improvements to the home bases of MLB club Kansas City Royals and Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. In that proposal, the team owners have pledged a total of $1.3 billion in private funding for the estimated $2 billion project.

Large public-private stadium projects are seen as necessary and risky. For team owners – particularly in the United States, where clubs are “franchises” that have historically moved from city to city – building a new stadium is a means of developing more generous hospitality. The benefits also include attracting big-ticket events like the Super Bowl and World Cup (as well as the Eras Tours of the World), all of which generate more revenue. They are also one to whisper Promise to keep a franchise in the city if everything is approved.

A private equity executive who spoke to Scoreboard this week about the modern sports landscape explained one reason for the venue improvement argument. The “at home” experience – with high-definition television and modern camera angles – “is getting better and better. … so the game has to keep getting better,” they said.

On the other hand, taxpayers can simply say no.

Highlights

• North America is still the right place for investors, according to the co-founder of the special fund Arctos. Ian Charles says the predictable media revenues from the NFL, NBA and rival sports are more attractive than the patchy, performance-based revenues offered in European soccer.

• DAZN is expected to take legal action against the German Football League over the handling of the current broadcast rights auction. The sports streamer accuses the DFL of awarding the best package of football games to a rival who submitted a lower bid. The DFL rejects the allegations.

• Apple is the frontrunner to secure streaming rights for the revamped FIFA Club World Cup, which starts in the US next summer. According to the New York Times, traditional broadcasters balked at the price demanded by FIFA to broadcast the new tournament.

• La Liga boss Javier Tebas wants to start hosting Spanish soccer league games in the US as early as the 2025/26 season, he told Expansion newspaper.

Final whistle

Americans sing the US national anthem before every single sporting event, which is strange, but let’s put that aside for a moment. The most important thing to discuss is that the R&B artist will be at this week’s NBA playoff first-round game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns Sisqó did the honors to lace up the stars and stripes. Did we know we needed a Sisqó version of the national anthem? Did we know he lives out his life in Minneapolis? Also, did we know that “The Thong Song” is actually older than half of the Wolves squad? Now we know.