Bad boys are doing lines - but how many get punished?
By Jacquelin Magnay
May 20, 2006
IF YOU believe the anecdotal stories and rumours, a fair chunk of AFL, league and union players are zombied-out druggies, snorting lines of cocaine or popping ecstasy tablets, whittling away their lucrative contracts on securing a stash of recreational drugs.
A gram of coke sells on the street for $250-$300. A tablet supposedly containing some kind of speed goes for about $30-$50. It is true a lot of professional football players have the money, the spare time and the connections to partake in a whack of chemical happiness, but does this really happen?
It has become almost a hearsay stereotype that the better the player, the bigger his ego, and the more addicted to illicit drugs he is, but there is little statistical evidence to back this up.
Talk to players, coaches and officials and the view is that the players are "into it" but not on a regular basis. There is also the opinion that sportspeople are more discriminate in their drug use compared to the general population because of the fear of drug testing and the scrutiny of clubs and fellow players.
"Cocaine is too expensive and there is such a risk of getting caught, especially during the season that those who are on it tend to let rip in the off season," said a league source.
Clubs and even rival codes are sometimes tipped off about a player's supposed unsavoury habit - it may be a ploy by rivals to undermine the player, or maybe it's the truth. One rugby league club has mandatory weekly drug testing of a particular player written separately to, but officially part of his contract.
Yet only one player, Waratahs winger Wendell Sailor, has tested positive to a recreational drug this season under the official Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) testing using the widely enforced World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) code. This is despite the fact cocaine can usually only be detected within a 24-hour window, but sometimes as long as three days.
ARU spokesman Tim Archer says this shows these drugs are not in widespread use in rugby. But under the WADA code, ASADA tests for illicit, recreational drugs only during in-competition tests. They don't look for it midweek or in the off season.
The theory behind the in-competition testing is that coke, Es, amphetamines and ice enhance a player's clarity and aggression during a game, giving him an edge. Cheating, in other words.
But under the ASADA testing, the players are not tested for these drugs out of competition because the benefits are so short-acting - a direct contrast to steroids or erythropoietin or human growth hormone.
Earlier this year an AFL player, who didn't want his name published, told The West Australian newspaper: "Rather than get a belly full of beer, players can take an E (ecstasy tablet) and a bottle of water and still go out and have a good time with their friends."
But unlike rugby league's demotions this week to Mark Riddell and Tim Smith for turning up to training drunk, AFL players Laurence Angwin was sacked and Karl Norman suspended after arriving for training at Carlton having taken ecstasy.
The AFL is in the Victorian Supreme Court next week to stop the Herald from publishing the names of a further three AFL players who have each tested positive twice this season to such illicit drugs. Fifteen AFL players have tested positive once this season to illicit drugs. Four years ago the police investigated claims two West Coast Eagles players had been caught during a police tap telephoning a drug dealer for cocaine, but no charges were laid.
Dermott Brereton reckons three or four players at each AFL club regularly take such drugs, and in 2002 Dale Lewis controversially said he believed around 75 per cent of players had done some sort of recreational drug.
Rugby league has had its culprits: Andrew Walker tested positive to cocaine in 2004, and in the same year Willie Mason was fined $25,000 by his Bulldogs club for an in-house test to a recreational drug.
Both the AFL and NRL are concerned about identifying illicit drug use. The AFL has its illicit drug policy which is separate to, but runs alongside the WADA code, which tests for recreational drugs out of competition. All of the NRL clubs, except one, are testing for drug use out of competition as part of their health and occupational safety rules.
The league clubs want a harmonious atmosphere, not poisoned by drug taking. It also helps to know which of the players they have to watch, for clubs don't want to lose their star player for a couple of years if he tests positive during an in-competition test. As Sailor discovered this week, his fat pay packet from the ARU is about to go belly up and his career abruptly shortened if he gets the mandatory two-year ban.
