After Russia's widespread violations at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, new World Anti-Doping Agency director general Olivier Niggli says an expanding investigations staff will be on the lookout for state-sponsored cheating in other nations.
"It has happened in one country. I think it would be naive to think it's the only country,'' he said on Thursday during an interview at The Associated Press.
"We have to have our eyes really open and also make sure we act on intelligence and information we might get.''
A report commissioned for WADA found state-directed manipulation of drug-testing results at the Moscow anti-doping lab from at least 2011 through the summer of 2013 and said Russia's Ministry of Sport advised the laboratory which findings to cover up.
More than 100 Russian athletes, including the entire track and field team, were banned from this year's Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Niggli, a 46-year-old Swiss lawyer who replaced David Howman on July 1, said WADA will have conversations with FIFA about testing at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
"It's still sufficiently far away to hope that things will have changed and improved in Russia,'' Niggli said.
"It's very important that we be able to work with the Russians to try to set up a system that is called compliant and that will provide some safeguards so that everybody regains confidence in what is going on there.''
Since the manipulation of Russian drug tests became public, the sample bottle used to collect urine has been improved.
The IOC also has proposed that WADA take responsibility for drug testing across sports or establish an affiliate agency to do so.
Niggli rejected a suggestion by Russian Vladimir Putin that athletes with therapeutic use exemptions be excluded from major competitions.
"I don't think it's meaningful. I think every human being has a right of being treated for medical conditions,'' he said.
Niggli was hired as WADA's legal director in 2002, added the title of finance director two years later, then left for a law firm in 2011. He returned to WADA two years ago as chief operating officer.
