Australia: AFL drugs code tested

With one AFL player sitting a nostril away from being banned from playing football, the league's support among clubs for the illicit drugs policy also would seem to be a sniff away from fracturing.

If this player, who has twice tested positive for recreational or illicit drug use, is caught a third time by the Australian Sports Drug Agency in its out-of-competition tests, then his club will be officially informed for the first time that one of its players is a drug user. This information will be passed on moments before the player is charged for failing a third drug test and advised to attend the tribunal for a likely six to 12-match ban.

That club will be confronted with losing a player for taking drugs that, while stimulants, are not considered to be performance-enhancing. Indeed, unless dancing to loud music and blowing a whistle is their thing on the field, then taking party drugs would retard performance.

At the time of the announcement of the new drugs regimen, many clubs, and players, felt that to object too strenuously would imply support for drug-taking.

Players were comforted with a reminder that to avoid detection, they would only need abide by the law. That they were to be submitted to tests not applied to the wider community in ensuring they abide by those laws was another matter.

Anecdotally, the incidence of drug-taking, particularly of ecstasy, is high among players.

This practice is anathema to the image, let alone performance, of an elite athlete, so trying to rid the sport of this is to be encouraged. Whether you should do so by banning players is what clubs will ask. Whether you can do so without banning players would be the AFL's question.

Clubs have been happy to support the principle, but will be challenged should reality hit. Clubs are notorious for talk of raising "quality people" but repeatedly forgive off-field antics, provided the player has good on-field form. The better the player, the easier to forgive.

Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse spoke angrily at the time of the regimen's introduction that it was wrong that the club was the last to know if players had taken drugs.

One could only imagine the reaction from Malthouse if, on the eve of the season, he learnt that it was a Magpie who had been doing drugs (there is no suggestion that it was a Collingwood player who recorded the two positive tests).

It is difficult to envisage the unity of the clubs' support for the drugs ban being maintained should the philosophy become reality. It would equally be hard for a player to plead innocence - to having taken a tablet from his mum, for instance - if he was caught three times.


Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Sun, 12 March 2006
Source: The Age (Australia - Web)
Author: Michael Gleeson
Copyright: 2006 The Age
Website: http://www.theage.com.au