Interesting article in the Australian a few months back about...

Interesting article in the Australian a few months back about our main shareholder's role in the illicit drug testing of AFL players.

Fitzpatrick could amend drugs code
Chip Le Grand | March 23, 2007

MIKE FITZPATRICK has spent a lifetime in football. When he started playing juniors, coke was something in a can. When he starred for Carlton, ice was something to keep the cans cold. How the football landscape has changed.

Now that Fitzpatrick is the new chairman of the AFL commission, elected on a day when footballers, coke and ice are said to be a combustible mix in Perth, a city where he played football and went to university, he concedes the league must be prepared to change a few things as well.

Like his late predecessor, Ron Evans, and chief executive Andrew Demetriou, Fitzpatrick believes the AFL's drug policy is fundamentally sound. Yesterday he described the parallel testing regime for performance-enhancing and illicit drugs as the country's most sophisticated. He also said it needed to get better.

When the club presidents left headquarters following the league's annual general meeting, they were confident the AFL under its new chairman would give serious consideration to tightening its illicit drugs code.

The result may well be that in the "three strikes" lingo of baseball, the AFL's party boys are given one less swing before their clubs are informed.

As it stands, players must return three positive tests to drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy or the deadly amphetamine ice before the club coach and chief executive are told. As Collingwood boss Eddie McGuire has said for two years, it means not even he can tell you which Magpies are flying high.

Fitzpatrick did not promise a formal review of the code. But in contrast to Demetriou - whose support of the code was born of a bitter stoush with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the federal Government - Fitzpatrick sees room for amendment.

"As a commission, we brought in the illicit drugs policy a couple of years ago," Fitzpatrick said. "We think the policy does well and it has served us well. We think we have a lot more work to do.

"I am not sure whether we will quite get to where some of the clubs want to get to and there is a difference of opinion amongst the clubs. We had a meeting with captains as well today and it is fair to say there is a difference of view amongst the captains.

"But there is no doubt there is room for improvement."

Any change to the code will require negotiation with the AFL Players Association, which has consented to their members being tested outside match days for drugs that have no performance-enhancing benefit.

While the AFLPA has been steadfast in its support of the code - particularly its emphasis on player counselling and rehabilitation instead of WADA-style, zero-tolerance sanctions - Geelong captain Tom Harley is one player prepared for clubs to be informed earlier in the process.

"The clubs are saying we want to know," Harley said. "I am not altogether against that."

Harley is typical of AFL players in his view on whether drugs are a problem in the sport. He said he had never seen footballers taking drugs and doubted it was a problem within his own club. He also said the testing regime was not sufficient to deter players who wanted to take drugs.

"If you want to run the gauntlet you will probably get away with it," Harley said. "If they want to catch someone and give them three strikes, they are just going to have to ramp up the tests. If that is what they want to do, they have got to test more people.

"I would say, on average, I am probably tested once a year. And I can't remember being tested out of competition for a long time."

Harvey added that clubs did not need to rely on positive tests to address drug use by players.

"The positive test is irrelevant," he said. "If I come to training on a Monday and I have heard a story that a bloke has been on X, I don't need a positive test to be told that. Boys talk. You don't wait for a positive test to nip it in the bud."

Demetriou says more tests are not necessarily the answer. Anecdotal evidence suggests the AFL is already testing smarter, with more players being screened on Sunday and Monday morning recovery sessions instead of later in the week.

The AFL also has an option to target test clubs, but could not confirm whether this had been done at West Coast.

"The answer isn't five million tests and we will catch everybody," Demetriou said.

"We need to combine our testing regime with educational programs.

"Early indications are, with the number of positives, that the trend is going down. But this is a difficult issue. There is no policy in the world, in any organisation and any business, which reduces the use of drugs to zero. If there is, we want to know about it."