What’s G.O.B. Gonna Do About RADO Suspension?

Patrick Faber

The Regional Anti-Doping Organization has suspended Belize’s National Anti-Doping Organization.  This happened on August fourteenth, following another absence by Belize’s rep Doctor Michael Pitts at a meeting of the Advisory Board in Cuba. According to the official letter that was copied to Minister of Sports Patrick Faber, this is the third consecutive time that Doctor Pitts has missed meetings and as such benefits and delegation of responsibilities in anti-doping matters have also been removed. This decision, however, can be reversed through an extraordinary meeting of the board at the request of G.O.B.  The decision has given Belize a black eye in the world of sports. Today Minister Faber says that they will have to adhere to the requests of RADO.

Patrick Faber, Minister of Sports

“The sporting world is very funny. They demand that we participate when it requires some serious funding. If you don’t participate in X, Y, Z, they ban you, you can’t participate; you remember the ordeal with CODICADER and so on. And until it is that we are getting some large sums of money allocated to the sporting portfolio then I am sorry, we will probably have to continue being dismissed at times. But I can assure sporting enthusiasts and even the international community that Belize has no intention of flouting the procedures of anti-doping or any other areas of sporting where we have run afoul of these international organizations. And that since we have been put in this position, I suppose as with many other things in the government, when the whip is cracked from outside, we will have to try to see what we can do to fall in compliance with what it is they are asking. You have my assurance that we will be working on that.”