Sweden's anti-doping organization Swedish anti-doping has been part of the Swedish Sports Federation and RF's doping commission has, for example, made decisions on doping suspensions. But for several years there have been discussions that Sweden should have a standalone anti-doping organization and on Monday the Swedish National Sports Board made the decision.

- When a prominent athlete is accused of doping and is convicted, the outside world should know that nobody in Sweden influences what we do without it being completely independent. It is a matter of trust simply, says Åke Andrén Sandberg, physician and chairman of the doping commission.

Slow RF process

Åke Andrén Sandberg thinks it is nice that the decision is made and admits that it has taken its time.

- We have discussed it now and then, but RF has been slow in this context. Maybe because it worked so well. We have had a lot of confidence, and I think we still have it, in the sports movement.

According to Andrén Sandberg, the name of the new organization should continue to be Swedish anti-doping. But many questions remain. Among other things, who will be included in the new board and how much the reorganization will cost.

RF has already received SEK 35 million a year in government grants for its anti-doping work. Money that should instead go to the independent organization. RF chairman Björn Eriksson wants the government, with the Minister of Culture and Sport Amanda Lind (MP) at the forefront, to stand for the rest of the bill.

The work is not affected

- In terms of experience, I know that when you form new authorities it is always much more expensive, it is not that strange. It may also be that you want to raise the level of ambition and do tests at the gym. But we mean that when sports leave over these 35 million, we have made our financial contribution. Then maybe there are other forces, in the form of finance ministries and other things, that have to fill in the extra cost that becomes, says Eriksson.

Åke Andrén Sandberg agrees.

- We hope that when Amanda Lind says that we will have a world-class anti-doping organization that it will not only be words but that it will be a little neighborly workshop, he says.

Neither Eriksson nor Andrén Sandberg believe that the Swedish doping work will be affected by the reorganization.

- I don't think so, on the contrary. I believe that it will be very stable in the near future and that there will be a gradual development. I do not see it at all as a concern, says Åke Andrén Sandberg.