Should the Aussie pro sports have signed WADA?

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OK, we know the current score. Cricket, rugby league and rugby union have signed up to WADA whereas the AFL has refused to sign. But the big question is, did cricket and the rugby codes buckle under unfair pressure from the Federal government or is the AFL being ridiculous?

Advantages of signing up to WADA:
(1) From an idealistic viewpoint, coming into line with a common drug code that many sporting bodies around the world will eventually agree to.
(2) From a pragmatic viewpoint (in Australia) - not losing the Federal funding that has been threatened to be withdrawn by the government as a penalty for not signing.

Disadvantages of signing up to WADA:
(1) Giving up the autonomy to set your own drug code - for example, if WADA suddenly wants to add something to the banned list, there is no right of reply.
(2) The fact that WADA seems to have its priorities wrong with respect to a few of the minor drugs - e.g. caffeine and pseudoephidrine are completely legal, whereas cortisone (which is not performance enhancing and basically just used to treat injuries) is illegal.
(3) Huge increase in the cost of paperwork - because all asthma puffers are illegal unless registered, extra payments must be made at both ends (doctors to complete the forms plus medically trained people to receive and file the forms and communicate with ASDA).
(4) Also, from a pragmatic viewpoint from the AFL, avoiding a legal battle with the AFL Players Association. Apparently the AFLPA and AFL signed off on a contract regarding testing with the AFLPA and the AFL would be breaking this contract by varying it and signing up with WADA.

Many commentators have come out arguing on either side. What is your view?

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Out of interest, my beef with WADA is the paperwork and the administrative difficulties. I'd hate to see someone rubbed out for taking a Ventolin puffer when we are aware that some genuine cheats are escaping.

With respect to the illicit drugs, e.g. ecstasy, cocaine and marijuana, I really don't mind if the WADA code (or any other drug code) throws the book at the players (e.g. 2 year ban). The problem of drug taking in society is enormous, and the athletes are role models. If it was known that football players never took illicit drugs (because of being scared of 2 year bans) some of the glamour would lose its attraction.

Interesting that Patrick Smith accused the AFL, in yesterday's Australian, of not signing WADA because it wanted to cover up marijuana positives. I think there are more problems that this with WADA but it will be interesting to see whether the AFL increases suspensions for marijuana in light of this criticism.

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Mike Sheahan (neutral-pro WADA):

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15824299%255E19742,00.html

Jim Wilson/Raelene Boyle (pro-WADA):

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15824298%255E20322,00.html

Peter Larkins (neutral):

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15824301%255E19742,00.html

Damian Barrett (neutral-pro WADA):

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,15824297%255E19742,00.html

Greg Baum (anti-WADA):
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/07/04/1120329386539.html

Michael Voss (anti-WADA):
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/07/02/1119724847852.html

Patrick Smith (pro-WADA):
http://foxsports.news.com.au/story/0,8659,15814922-23211,00.html

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Argument against the AFL from Patrick Smith (The Australian):

Policy a smoky to protect dopes
By Patrick Smith
July 6, 2005

AS Adrian Anderson tells it, the AFL's illicit-drug policy was drawn up after studying the results of two years of testing.

More than 900 tests during 2003 and 2004 showed up 31 positive results to illicit drugs.

Anderson, the league's manager of football operations, has said this figure was a factor in the AFL drawing up its own illicit-drug policy and turning its back on the WADA code.

No doubt the AFL had to act in some manner. It was an unsatisfactory and ultimately unmanageable figure that threatened the league with ridicule and embarrassment.

The AFL claims it decided to take its secretive and confidential policy path because "world authorities" had advised that this was the best management strategy.

It is also what any half-decent public relations company would tell you to do as well. Construct some device that shields the facts from the public as long as possible.

The most meaningful test of the AFL's motives on illicit drugs would have been demonstrated had the two years of results turned up just one positive test.

Would the AFL have resisted WADA compliancy if figures showed that drug abuse was all but non-existent? Would Anderson still have employed this elaborate three-tier management plan that withholds players' names from their own clubs even after two positive tests?

Hardly. The AFL's chief executive Andrew Demetriou has said: "We are determined to set an example for every level of the game by condemning drug use."

That is just rhetoric when it comes to illicit drugs. The present system sets an example to no one because no one gets to see it in action.
A side-effect of the AFL's exemplary vigilance to track down players who cheat - use performance-enhancing drugs - is that the number of tests are great and vastly spread. Hence, the uncomfortable number of positives to illicit drugs.

In a sport that is so conscious of its image that players are fined if they wear the wrong length sleeve on the field or the wrong coloured bicycle shorts, it is implausible to think the AFL would allow itself to suffer worldwide condemnation to protect just one player who committed an illegal act every two years.

This is the sport that punishes coaches and players for burping.

This is the sport that rubbed Byron Pickett out for six weeks to set an example. This is the sport that rubbed Fraser Gehrig out for one match because he touched Jason Cloke on the stomach. This is the league that went and got a woman commissioner just so its corporate image looked better.

This a sport that muddles the facts.

At a news conference last week Demetriou said if the AFL was WADA-compliant it would have to do fewer tests. Was he sure? "I think I know," he replied.

In fact, WADA says the AFL can do as many tests as it likes. As many as it can afford. You can believe if you like that this is the best way to treat players who abuse drugs, but the AFL is about the only world body to have stumbled across such a curious process.

Soccer hasn't, union hasn't, league hasn't. Neither has tennis, swimming or athletics. Not even the amateurs of Gaelic football.

Reliable sources inform us that a joint on the streets of Sydney yesterday would have cost you about $5.

Here is what marijuana is costing the AFL so its players can smoke a joint anonymously:

* Status as a sporting body willing to help WADA in the universal fight to stamp out drug cheating and abuse;

* The league's well-earned reputation as being hard on drug use;

* Australian Sports Commission funding of $258,000 and servicing, including sport development, indigenous sport programming and officiating;

* AFL and Australian Institute of Sport co-operation that includes $2 million over four years and access to sports science, medicine, performance analysis, strength and conditioning regimes;

* Access to ASC national coaching and officiating accreditation schemes;

* The AFL will not be recognised as a national sporting organisation, which limits state funding;

* More than $2.2 million in whole of government funding (money to Aboriginal communities, health programs etc);

* It might also cost the Adelaide Crows team doctor his position with the club. Brian Sando is chairman of the ASDA board. To hold both positions now would seem untenable;

* Loss of intellectual networking. Any involvement with the AIS by the league must now be cleared through the ASC executive.

These seem unthinkable and intolerable sacrifices for the game of football to suffer so players can smoke joints. But that is what the AFL is prepared to do by refusing to fall in with the rest of the world and become WADA-compliant.

The AFL players received a 3 per cent pay increase last week. Seems at least some of them might need it to finance their habit.

Within a week the AFL hopes to send Anderson and the league's legal man Andrew Dillion to WADA headquarters to explain the league's position. Let's hope a compromise can be achieved.

Football is taking a battering so some players can flout the laws of the land.

The Australian

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Argument in favour of the AFL's stance (Peter Brukner, The Age):

Imagine this scenario. You are an 18-year-old tertiary student. At the end of one of your exams you are approached by drug testers employed by the tertiary institution who demand that you have a drug test. The test shows small traces of cannabis and you admit that a couple of nights ago you had a couple of puffs of a joint.

As a result of your "positive" drug test you are suspended from your studies for two years and your indiscretion becomes publicly known. You bring shame on yourself, your family and your institution. I think most of us would consider that unreasonable and an invasion of privacy. Yet that is what could happen to AFL footballers if the AFL were to sign up to the WADA code.

There are a number of important issues to consider in this whole hysterical debate about the AFL and the WADA code.

The most crucial point is that both organisations are totally committed to stamping out the use of performance-enhancing drugs by the use of regular testing both in and out of competition. Unfortunately this aspect has been lost in the debate over illicit drugs. This is the big battle and the one that sport has to win.

Should sports such as the AFL even be testing for illicit drugs? As far as I am aware, the only employers who are permitted to drug test their employees are in jobs where the use of illicit drugs may endanger lives. I think most of us would consider an employer demanding a drug test for substances such as cannabis as being totally unreasonable.

If sports administrators wish to become the legal and moral arbiters of their participants, why stop at illicit drugs? Why not do random blood-alcohol levels at night clubs on a Saturday night or insert a device into every player's car so they can be detected speeding?

If we are serious about detecting the presence of illicit drugs, then we would test as frequently as possible and this would involve out-of-competition testing. The second issue is what to do with a positive test for a substance such as marijuana.

Let's compare the ways WADA and the AFL propose to do it. WADA will only test for illicit drugs in competition, when a positive test would be unlikely in AFL football. The AFL will test its players in and out of competition for 44 weeks in a year. This method is more likely to detect those with a problem.

What then should happen with a positive test? WADA takes a strictly punitive approach and imposes a one-year suspension for the first offence, two years for the second and life for the third.

The AFL on the other hand is taking a counselling and rehabilitation approach for the first and second offences and a punitive approach for repeat offenders.

The AFL stance on illicit drugs is absolutely correct and it should be congratulated on maintaining its strong position in the face of the surrounding hysteria.

Peter Brukner is associate professor in sports medicine at the University of Melbourne.

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Patrick Smith on the AFL 'capitulation':

Code goes up in smoke
By Patrick Smith
July 20, 2005

THIS is not a compromise. This is a capitulation.

These are the grimmest moments in Andrew Demetriou's reign as AFL chief executive. Dark times, too, for the AFL commissioners.

The league yesterday informed federal Sports Minister Rod Kemp that it would comply with the drug protocols of the World Anti-Doping Agency from November 1. The meeting went for some 40 minutes. The AFL released a three-paragraph statement.

Afterwards an apparently rattled Demetriou left a news conference only to return about 30 seconds later, although he refused to answer questions. He then ignored the media as he made his way to his car.

Last month Demetriou sat in line with his medical commissioner Peter Harcourt and general manager, football operations, Adrian Anderson to explain why the league would refuse to comply with the WADA code. In the room were Colin McLeod, the league's chief media spinner, and players' boss Brendon Gale. The league said there were three reasons why the AFL could not possibly sign on the dotted line come the government-set deadline of June 30.

One, the collective bargaining agreement with the players could not be altered. Two, joining WADA would mean the AFL would have to reduce its number of tests. Three, the WADA sanctions for cannabis use were too tough.

Two of these were simply nonsense. Only the sanctions worried the AFL because in the previous two years there had been 31 positive tests to illicit drugs. Demetriou and the commission had waged a war they could not possibly win.

Yesterday Demetriou acknowledged the league had become compliant and thereafter not a peep was heard from him. Neither Demetriou nor Anderson has returned calls from The Australian. The capitulation is utter. The government has begun to release some $3million whole-of-government funding for AFL programs that was withdrawn when the June 30 deadline was not met.

The government, WADA and the Australian Sports Commission did not change their position. Not a centimetre to the left or right. Forward or back. The AFL simply had to tear up its own drug policy and crash in line with every other major sport in the country.

The arrogance of the AFL saw it take on the government, WADA, the ASC and the Australian community. It lost on every front. There will be some licking of wounds. Drug abuse deeply concerns parents and they want to see strong, transparent leadership.
The AFL is a highly successful body. It is normally well managed and sensibly led. It is not, though, nearly as powerful as it boasts around its own commission table. Nor can it bully and bash everybody into submission. It is one thing to thump a table and shake a fist, another thing altogether to make sound and rational argument.

The commission that Ron Evans chairs must share responsibility for yesterday's humiliation. It plays an international series against Ireland which is WADA compliant and funds AFL football all around the world.

Drug abuse in sport has turned supporters everywhere cynical. The AFL needed to have the vision to join the world cause because WADA is sport's only weapon.

That it didn't means commissioners Graeme John and Chris Langford, who stand for re-election at the league's next annual meeting, should be forced to fight for their positions. The commission needs new blood. It has made an unthinkable error because it thought itself invincible, confused its responsibilities.

The AFL has tried to spin its position but in the end it simply spun out of control. First the AFL would not announce the number of positive tests. Then it released them in the AFL Record and was chuffed that they went unnoticed.

As public opinion began to bite, it stage-managed a flight to New Zealand to meet WADA officials in the guise of working out a compromise. It was nothing but a junket, for the AFL knew WADA's position backwards and WADA knew that of the AFL equally well.

So badly has the league handled the matter that it appeared a sporting body was prepared to forgo $3m annually so its players could smoke a joint unpunished.

Under the torn-up AFL code players testing positive to cannabis would have faced counselling for a first and second offence. A maximum suspension of six matches could apply for a third offence.

Under WADA, sanctions for a first offence range from a warning to a one-year suspension. A third positive test can see a player banned for life.

Demetriou looked a little punch drunk yesterday. So he should. Along with his competition he has taken a fearsome blow.

The Australian

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Mike Sheahan's view:

Demetriou ran out of options
20 July 2005 Herald Sun

WE'VE heard it a hundred times from club level: you can't beat City Hall.

City Hall, though, got its comeuppance yesterday. From the big boys in the national capital.

The AFL has become WADA compliant in its drug code because it had to. Because the Federal Government said, "do so, or else".

The AFL decision has been labelled many things. Basically, a backdown, a backflip, a cave-in.

In reality, it is a pragmatic compromise. As much as it might have irked Andrew Demetriou, he had to roll over.

Superfluous for those who saw him at the announcement to suggest he wasn't happy.

Yet the Howard Government simply was going to squeeze and squeeze until the AFL submitted.

In the end, it wasn't a question of who of WADA and the AFL had the more appropriate drug code, rather how the AFL could best achieve an honourable backdown.

The Government put the torch to the AFL and every other body or group round the country with mutual interests.

The threat, direct or implied, that millions in funding suddenly might evaporate is a powerful force.

Direct funding to the AFL and funding to a host of clubs, leagues and organisations. Perhaps the lowest blow of all was the implied threat of disappearing funds for indigenous programs associated with football.

Dirty pool, Kangaroo veteran Glenn Archer declared last night, and he meant it. Lucky for the PM the Roos aren't playing in Canberra this weekend.

Archer also implied the AFL Players' Association was of the view the AFL could have done no more to stay faithful to the code agreed to with the AFLPA.

While it can be argued the AFL code is too soft, it is a fact that FIFA and most of the major sports in the United States are not yet WADA-compliant.

John Howard took the big stick to football for his own reasons.

He obviously wants to be aligned with WADA; he decided Australia's most popular sport was the perfect vehicle.

A question: who is to say the Government's rationale on drug testing is more appropriate than the advice that led the AFL to its code?

The sticking point has been how an organisation should deal with a positive test to cannabis in competition.

The AFL provided one too many strikes for its players, but why can't the AFL impose its own controls?

After all, it is the AFL and not WADA that tests out of competition. Incidentally, out of competition is any time other than game day, which is a rather sizeable window.

In the finish, the question isn't whether the WADA code or the AFL code is better, but whether the Federal Government should impose itself upon a sport with an excellent record for social responsibility.

My answer is "no".

[Nicholas]

I think they should.

By the way, you're looking lonely here!:) :D