“Today a new history of anti-doping begins," Witold Bańka said at a World Anti-Doping Agency congress in the southern Polish city of Katowice.
"Sport is a beautiful ideal, the last in the world that can connect people regardless of their political views, religion, skin colour or age,” Bańka told the conference on Tuesday.
“That is why it must be protected … Otherwise it will be the end of sport, people will turn away from it. I fear that we are close to the critical point and that’s why we have to do everything to preserve this ideal.”
Bańka added that the World Anti-Doping Agency needed an “appropriate” budget.
“It’s absurd that an organisation which is supposed to be an international regulator has a budget of less than USD 40 million. The average football club has more," he said.
Bańka is due to take over as head of the World Anti-Doping Agency on January 1.
The World Anti-Doping Agency conference in Katowice runs until Thursday.
(pk/gs)
Source: PAP