The International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) has introduced a new, confidential way for athletes, coaches, referees, volunteers and anyone involved with blind and visually impaired sports to report potential doping offences.

At the centre of a new whistleblowing procedure is an email address where people can get in touch in confidence if they have information to share about doping across the IBSA-governed sports of chess, football-5-a-side, goalball, judo, nine and tenpin bowling, powerlifting and showdown.

It compliments IBSA’s increased in and out-of-competition testing programme as well as the introduction of blood tests in 2019. Last year all sanctioned events were subject to doping controls with the same planned again before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of competitions.

The email address for whistleblowers is: [email protected].

Hela Kouki Chaouachi, Chair of the IBSA Anti-Doping Committee, said:

“We hope that by giving athletes and teams a place where they can report doping, privately, we can improve our detection efforts further.

“We are committed to a level-playing field for all blind and partially sighted athletes in the sports we are responsible for, and have made great strides towards that. But we also know that there is much more work to do and will continue to be proactive.

“I would like to send a personal message to anyone thinking of contacting us with information: We appreciate it is a big decision to make. On behalf of the whole anti-doping committee, let me reassure you that everything will be treated with the utmost privacy and discretion. You can trust us to take you seriously.”

As well as the new whistleblowing procedure, the IBSA Governing Board will shortly consider the revised IBSA Anti-Doping Rules due to be introduced in 2021.

The updated rules, which apply to all IBSA members, national federations, athletes and support personnel, reflect changes made to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Code which come into force at the start of 2021.

IBSA is a signatory of the WADA Code.

More information about anti-doping can be found here: https://www.ibsasport.org/anti-doping/