Interesting article in yesterday's Age - remembering that HGR's...

Interesting article in yesterday's Age - remembering that HGR's number one shareholder is current Chairman of the AFL:


Tim Lane
September 8, 2007
THE truce has been called, the legal injunction is permanent, and now we can all forget about what has gone before. It's time to move on. It's finals time. It's the fast moving, ever-fluid, and gloriously simple world of footy.
Yet it's not quite that simple for many of the players in this game within the game. Relationships have been fractured. One media organisation has faced the almost unanimous disapprobation of the rest of the media and the broader community. The AFL has faced another headache and incurred more legal bills. One football club and its players, a few of them in particular, will have been in turmoil.
Even for those in the media not directly involved in the skirmish, that last element has created its own set of problems. The suppression order on the names, and club, of the players whose medical documents were recently obtained by Channel Seven has created an issue in the coverage of football that in my recollection is without precedent.
Think about it this way: for the past fortnight, as the home and away season has headed to its denouement, endless media reports and interviews have covered aspects of life at every club in the AFL. In this state, where there are 10 clubs, one has a drug-related problem on its hands and we cannot refer to it. Despite the fact that the club was named in the controversial story run by Channel Seven on August 24, and that the football grapevine is such that everyone who wants to know its identity knows it, the media must act as though they don't know.
Not only does everyone in the football media know the club, they know the identity of the two players who returned two positive drug tests. Yet interviews with significant figures from the club, leaders who may have previously articulated public positions on football's drugs issue, must now specifically avoid the topic. This is permanently dictated by law.
The club involved may even be one of the four Victorian clubs that begin their finals campaign this weekend. Let's imagine for a moment it is.
Media interviews and discussions would be conducted about the things that might impact on that club's chances. Coaches and players would be quizzed about form, fitness, attitude, experience or lack of it and much more. There might even be questions about particular lifestyle issues affecting certain players, but not about the one with the greatest relevance and potential for distraction. The most pertinent question about the hypothetical club's finals preparation couldn't be asked for fear of contempt of court proceedings and the possibility of imprisonment.
Imagine what life would be like at this club, where surely everyone knew what had been going on and who were the players involved. Presumably, for fear of allowing rumours and misinformation to spread, the club's administration and football staff would have exhaustively addressed the issue with the entire playing group. This hypothetical contender would have an issue on its hands with the potential to derail its season. But it can't be discussed.
Of course the law has to stand. And the AFL and its players will say that had there been no unreasonable media intrusion, no one other than the players involved and those counselling them would have known about this in the first place. It doesn't alter the fact, though, that in an industry that derives the bulk of its income through media coverage, this is a bizarre situation.
Will the matter ever be publicised? What if such a club, now fragmented and without direction, played in a final and suffered a record defeat? More historically relevant, what if, galvanised by all that had happened, it produced a withering September and stormed to the first flag won by a Victorian club in seven years? Where would this leave the writing of the game's history?
The problems faced by the media are largely of Channel Seven's making. Its decision to rush to broadcast 15 days ago has ultimately prevented the exposure of a significant item of news. Not only is the story now unpublishable, so too are important elements of football life surrounding it. Clearly, the airing of private medical records was an unjustifiable mistake.
This story also reveals how dangerous it is for sports administrations to conduct testing for illicit drugs as such testing links private health issues with popular sport. Testing for performance-enhancing drugs has long been an issue of sport as it relates directly to the conduct and integrity of competitions. Illicit drug testing, which bears no such relationship to the integrity of competition, has now been made a sporting matter by the AFL. It will impose a football penalty on a player who breaches its illicit drug code on three occasions.
And of course it's a titillatingly sexy issue.
Having been the first sports body in Australia to head in this direction, the AFL has unwittingly opened a hornets' nest. While the media are studiously ignoring what they know about "Club X" and its players, they can't help but be drawn to the statements being made this week by federal Sports Minister George Brandis. When Brandis and his colleague, Christopher Pyne, Minister for Ageing, confronted the AFL in May to urge a tougher policy on illicit drugs, their case was poorly prepared and researched. The ministers seemed scarcely aware that the AFL was actually a pioneer in the matter of illicit drug testing and were left embarrassed. They were given short shrift by the AFL's Andrew Demetriou.
The Government now says it wants uniform anti-drugs measures in Australian sport and favours rugby league's tougher two-strike policy to the AFL's more generous three-stage process. The AFL will now be in its sights.
This looms as a problem for Demetriou and the players. The AFL Players Association agreed to the illicit drugs policy on the condition that it involved a three-strike process. It has continued to insist it will not compromise on this.
While the indigenous code of football has tremendous public support, the Ben Cousins affair revealed that the public has little sympathy for what it sees as rich, pampered footballers using drugs, even if they're doing nothing other than reflecting the behaviour pattern of society around them. It's unlikely the AFL can rely on public goodwill in a
test of strength with Brandis and Pyne. Perhaps its best chance is a change of government before the two ministers force its hand. Without it, it may face a major confrontation.
The showdown that could be forthcoming is one that need never have arisen. Had the AFL not taken the unprecedented step of appointing itself guardian of the social habits of its players, the pressure for illicit drug testing — which applies in few Australian workplaces other than those in which safety issues are involved — might never have arisen.
While it has, and it's not going away, not all of it can be discussed publicly.
Tim Lane is a football columnist and commentator.