AS the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) meet in Glasgow today to discuss their their future, and that of their Scottish president Sir Craig Reedie, a leading academic has urged them to focus more financial resources on targeting known drug abuse in specific sports and countries most linked to systemic doping breaches.

In tandem with that call, Dr Paul Dimeo, senior lecturer in sports policy at Stirling University, said the International Olympic Committee’s demand that Wada reform should start with them severing their their own ties with the agency.

“It would be better if the IOC and Wada were completely separate,” said Dimeo. “If Wada were completely independent, and given sole authority, that would be better.”

The IOC provide half of the agency’s $30 million annual budget, which flies in the face of their their own belief that they should be independent.

IOC president Thomas Bach says they will increase funding if reform is forthcoming, and that is being discussed this weekend.

Wada work on a shoestring; the remainder of their income comes from more than 200 countries in membership of global sports federations.

Such evident lack of commitment is an issue, but Dimeo believes irrespective of this, Wada can better deploy resources, and that some anti-doping funding is spent in a self-serving fashion, little better than window-dressing.

“There is an argument for more effective use of resources,” he saids. “It could be done more coherently. If there’s large-scale doping in some sport or in some countries, that should be the target. Instead, we see people being caught for relatively minor offences which are not deliberate cheating, or even performance-enhancing. There’s debate as to whether Wada should be policing recreational drugs like marijuana and cocaine.”

He cites a Welsh rugby hooker, well short of elite level, who had taken cocaine three or four days before a pre-season amateur friendly. It is banned only in competition and any performance enhancement is at best minimal.

“It was still in his system on match day. He’d never been tested before and had received no doping education. It’s a waste of time and money chasing such cases. I don’t believe there’s a need to increase the four-year ban or intensity of testing. Too many inadvertent people are being caught – perhaps 40 per cent, according to forthcoming research.”

As examples, he talks of kissing a stranger in a nightclub, “who has cocaine in their bloodstream”; medicines where the bottle has been used for something else or mis-labelled in some way, or; or people who are taking things to lose weight.

“These are not people who anti-doping programmes should be targeting. It’s not cost-effective.”

Moreover, he suggests that an element of UK initiatives have these soft targets to beef up conviction rates and demonstrate effectiveness.

A former Fullbright scholar, Dimeo has published dozens of papers, mainly but not exclusively on doping policies. Publications cover issues such as racism, migration of footballers, tourism, and hosting major sport events, and include a prize-winning monograph: A History of Drug Use in Sport, 1876-1976.

He has worked on four Wada- funded projects, but has often shown himself at odds with their their philosophy. One controversial view, expressed in June and misinterpreted by a reporter, cost him an advisory role at USA Cycling. So he swiftly dismisses any perception that he favours full legalisation of drugs.

“I do not, but I am in favour of reform,” he said. “Wada have to involve athletes a bit more. A less top-down approach would improve trust and enhance legitimacy. They need more transparency, and greater external auditing, more open debate as to what ‘clean sport’ means. On one hand, they struggle to catch the real cheats. On the other, too many people are being punished for doing little wrong. The rules are perhaps too tough.

“The question is how they intervene before a doping culture takes root. Part of that is about ensuring out-of-competition testing provides sufficient deterrent and reliable insider information to target high-risk areas. Another relates to the integrity of individuals in national anti-doping organisations, clubs and labs. We need an assurance that corruption can be detected and stopped – another reason for better use of resources.

“My broader historical perspective suggests clean sport is an anachronism and we need to re-assess what is realistic and meaningful in today’s environment: what are the most important drugs we are trying to limit, and why? This simple idea that everybody can avoid all drugs, all medicines, all supplements, is just not realistic or practical.”

Elected as Wada president in 2013, Reedie was is a victim of having been instrumental in revealing unpalatable home truths in the McLaren Report. These offended the Olympic movement and now they risk shooting the messenger. The Scot advocated tough sanctions on Russia for its state-sponsored doping. The IOC didn’t back him.

Dimeo believes sport is living in the past – the era where doping could be brushed under the carpet and resolved behind closed doors is gone.

“Trying to hang on to that vision is flawed. Re-testing [of samples from the past] has opened a Pandora’s Box and nobody knows how to deal with it.”