You could be accused of thinking that the AFL said the quiet bit out loud on Wednesday.
That at the heart of it all, yes, we do test our players for illicit drugs. And yes, we do get them to sit out of games if we find that illicit drugs are in their system, either overstating injuries or concocting them altogether to keep the trail clean.
But we do it for their own good.
We do it to protect them from the potential health impacts of playing elite sport with a dangerous drug in their systems. We do it to protect their identities because drug use is often linked to other mental health conditions, often brought on by the stress of the bright lights of the game — and we wouldn’t want to add to that stress.
And, crucially, we do it because if they get caught, the World Anti-Doping Agency could ban them from playing.
It’s that last point that will have fans tilting their heads and squinting their eyes as they consider the ethics of it all.
When Andrew Wilkie used parliamentary privilege to make accusations of serious misconduct against the AFL and the Demons in particular, the general consensus around social media and office water coolers was that it was mostly probably true, but proving it would require more information.
At 11:30am (AEDT), more information came, and it came via an AFL press release.
“If [a club doctor’s] test shows a substance is still in the player’s system, a doctor will take steps to prevent a player from taking part in either training and/or an AFL match both for their own health and welfare and because having illicit substances in your system on match day may be deemed performance enhancing and a breach of the Australian Football Anti-Doping Code [depending on the substance involved],” the release read.
“It is absolutely imperative that no doctor or club official should ever allow or encourage a player to take the field knowing they have recently taken an illicit substance that may be harmful to their health and/or may be deemed performance-enhancing [as many illicit substances are on match day].
“We support the WADA code [as it applies to our sport through the Australian Football Anti-Doping Code] and support the fundamental premise on which it is founded that any player who takes the field with a performance-enhancing prohibited substance in their system should be treated in accordance with the Anti-Doping Code and face heavy sanctions.”
It was less of a smoking gun and more of a manila folder marked “evidence”, with a nicely written note resting at the front of it saying “here’s why we did it”.
According to the AFL’s head honchos, they’re just looking after the health and well-being of their young players. They want to keep prying eyes away from private medical information, and the intense heat of the footy media machine.
And ultimately, they want to make sure their players are not found out by WADA, and banned from playing the game as a result.
Ethically, it’s a trembling tightrope that the AFL has been trying to traverse because in order to protect those players, the people who make these decisions are wantonly lying to their fans.
Should a player test positive for an illicit drug, that little hamstring niggle that would normally just be something to monitor becomes a reason to sit out a week.
You’ve got cocaine in your system? That ankle’s looking a little bit shaky. You’ve still got MDMA floating around your bloodstream? Maybe it’s time we threw a salute at our old friend general soreness.
It’s white lies over white lines — and the unfortunate consequence of it is that the microscope will now be firmly placed unfairly on players with legitimate injury concerns.
For the sake of protecting players who are knowingly breaking not just rules, but laws, the league has taken a broad brush approach to an issue that AFL boss Andrew Dillon said in his press conference only impacts a “small handful of players every year”.
The entire approach has been an open secret in football circles for years, and the AFL is at pains to make it clear they are reviewing what feels like a flawed policy that has existed since John Howard was prime minister.
And the big question they will need to ask in the process is — at what point does the league stop protecting the players from themselves?
On one hand, they have a duty to keep their players safe, in a world that’s often seen as an extension of the high school system, where coaches and doctors act as teachers who protect their teenage students from the big bad world they’ve entered.
On the other, they have the integrity of their business to uphold and an understanding that their players are legally adults, who make adult decisions that have adult consequences.
On one hand, the AFLPA is a supporter of the policy, and sees it as a great way to protect their people from bad decisions.
On the other hand, there’s an argument that hiding the tests away only exacerbates the problem, and does little in fixing the root cause of the issue.
There is no easy answer for the AFL regarding the next steps they take because they have dual obligations to player safety and league integrity.
But the thing that the fans — oft lauded as the lifeblood of Australian Football — will want to see from the people who run their game comes down to one thing.
Honesty.
The 11:30am press release was honest. Dillon’s press conference was guardedly honest. But what led to those honesty sessions was systemic dishonesty for the sake of what could be considered the noble or ethical cause of protecting your own.
If you damage the trust, though, you damage the brand — and the last thing the AFL can afford right now is to damage the faith of the faithful.
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Source: AFL NEWS ABC
