WADA Audit
As part of its compliance monitoring program, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) monitors its signatories’ rules and regulations to ensure they comply with the WADA Code and International Standards.
In 2006, the ICC became a signatory to the WADA Code and for the first time since , the ICC was audited in 2023. The ICC audit was proposed by WADA’s internal Compliance Taskforce and endorsed by the independent Compliance Review Committee (CRC) based on the monitoring process outlined in the International Standard for Code Compliance by Signatories (ISCCS). In preparation for the audit, the audit team used data held by WADA, including ADAMS and WADA's legal database. Furthermore, WADA requested that the ICC provide a number of documents.
In July 2023, a team of WADA auditors visited Dubai to carry out a full audit on the ICC’s anti-doping program. The purpose of the audit was for WADA to work in a collaborative manner with the ICC to assess its anti-doping program with the objective of providing assistance and guidance to the ICC where any enhancements to its program were necessary. The audit was across governance, education, data privacy, testing, risk assessment, whereabouts, Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs), Results Management and Intelligence and Investigations.
On 22 August 2023, WADA provided the ICC with a post audit report. The report highlighted the strengths of the ICC's anti-doping program, in particular, the limited but experienced and dedicated staff that run the ICC Anti-Doping program, the many tracking and planning mechanisms that allow the ICC to implement intelligence-led testing and target testing, the good initiatives and methods used to share information and engage with athletes at and around events, the quality of results management procedures in place, the effective management of TUEs, and finally the robust systems in place to protect personal information and sensitive data processed as part of anti-doping activities.
WADA’s report also included 16 Corrective Actions and an additional 16 best practice recommendations. The 16 corrective actions were categorized as critical, high priority and general, with implementation timelines ranging from 23 November 2023 to 23 May 2024.
The findings focused on the predictability and lack of flexibility in the ICC’s testing program and the ability of the whereabouts program to support the proposed changes to be made in the testing program. In addition, WADA sought the elimination of any advance notice provided to teams on match days unless exceptional circumstances apply.
The ICC has commenced working on its corrective actions and is pleased to report that the critical actions with the 23 November timeline have been signed off by WADA. Steady progress is being made on the high-priority actions which include revisions to the ICC’s existing whereabouts program. Members were consulted on the proposed whereabouts changes and the ICC is now in the process of revising its Whereabouts Rules to reflect the proposed changes. Furthermore, the ICC notified Members, as well as Teams competing at the ICC Men’s CWC 2023, of the change in the ICC’s in-competition testing protocols, removing any advance notice to teams during match day testing. Members will continue to be updated, as the ICC makes progress on its corrective actions.
