German law brings nothing – doping key witness? That doesn’t want to be an athlete – sport


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Despite mild penalties for insiders, no one opens up about doping. The damage would still be too great, says doping expert Hajo Seppelt.

With the so-called leniency program, it was hoped in Germany that more athletes would finally open up about doping. With this new law, which reduces penalties for whistleblowers, one could “encourage insiders to disclose doping,” said German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht a year ago.

But far from it. In the past twelve months, not a single process could be started due to the new regulation. Despite the prospect of a reduced sentence, no athlete wanted to become a whistleblower.

The legal situation in Switzerland


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Switzerland has no anti-doping law like in Germany. In this country, only the trade and administration of doping is prohibited. On the other hand, there is no leniency program, let alone is self-doping anchored in criminal law. The latter, which would represent a first step, is currently being examined by the federal government.

“It’s an important and good attempt,” says the prominent sports journalist and doping expert Hajo Seppelt to SRF, “but it’s not so easy that whole walls of silence suddenly collapse.”

Not worth unpacking

Seppelt tries to explain why the leniency program has not yet borne fruit. For the athletes, it is always a matter of weighing up the costs and benefits: what do you have to lose, or what penalty can you expect. “Obviously, so far, the athletes believe that the damage when unpacking is still greater,” said the German.

The reason for this is that social ostracism plays an important role in doping. In addition, in such cases, athletes are always part of a web of lies. You then have to ask yourself: What do you do with the statements in your own sports club, in the training team, in the coaching staff? The damage would be huge for the whistleblower, also from a personal point of view, and an entire (usually successful) system would collapse.

Law needs to be tightened

“In itself, the leniency program makes sense, but I think it needs to be tightened up,” explains Seppelt. One way would be to increase the incentive. So that whistleblowers, for example, have their sentences waived instead of just being reduced.

Another approach would be to tighten penalties for doping in general: offenders should be sanctioned more severely and the fear of this would increase as a result – so the prospects of a reduced sentence look rosy for insiders at the same time. But there is still no panacea to finally get more people to unpack.

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