The recent ruling that the entire Russian track-and-field team is to be banned from the Rio Olympics is a timely reminder of the risks performance-enhancing drugs hold for elite sportsmen and women and their governing bodies around the world.
More Sport Videos
- Video duration
- 05:30
FootyFix: wounded dogs head to the Cattery
- Video duration
- 01:48
AFL plays of round 19
- Video duration
- 01:28
Cats put down spirited Bulldogs
- Video duration
- 01:46
Pav set for game 350
- Video duration
- 01:30
Paul's $100,000 footy kick
- Video duration
- 02:27
Peter Bell targets Mark Robinson over Pav jibe
- Video duration
- 01:27
WA football history a no-show at new stadium?
FootyFix: wounded dogs head to the Cattery
Rohan Connolly previews all the footy action ahead of round 19 in the AFL.
The AFL has not been immune to those risks in the past four years, with 34 past and current Essendon players, as well as St Kilda's Ahmed Saad, Collingwood pair Lachie Keeffe and Josh Thomas, and Fremantle's Ryan Crowley all serving suspensions after being found guilty of doping offences.
Drug tests executed by ASADA are split into two categories, government-funded and user-pays. Government-funded tests are for most Olympic sports such as track-and-field and swimming. User-pays tests are conducted in sports such as AFL, cricket and rugby league.
Given the current high-risk climate, intuitively you would think the number of ASADA employees must have skyrocketed recently as everyone goes to "war" on performance-enhancing drugs. Naturally, you would also expect the number of tests on Australian athletes to have increased dramatically as well.
Surprisingly, this is not the case. ASADA has lost about 25 per cent of its workforce over the past three years as government and private funding has decreased. It's not only its workforce. Scanning through ASADA's annual reports, you see the number of user-pays tests (the AFL is part of this group) has dramatically reduced from 3209 in 2012-13 to 2404 in 2014-15, a cut of about 25 per cent. This year's annual report is yet to be released, but it will be interesting to see if this trend is continuing.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko. While Russian athletes have been in the international spotlight, the AFL has not been immune from performance-enhancing drug risks. Photo: AP
It is hard to see who will apply pressure on government and sporting bodies to stop the cuts to funding for ASADA. If the AFL didn't have a vilification policy, or respect and responsibility policy, and failed to embark on programs to address these community issues, it is likely it would come under pressure from one or many of its corporate partners, who would worry that the brand of the AFL was misaligned with their own brand propositions.
And while the same corporate partners would be outraged if there were an outbreak of positive drug tests, it is unlikely they would kick up much of a fuss at reduced spending to catch out unscrupulous athletes. But it doesn't make sense to be disgusted at the Russian situation, and to barrack for more stringent tests and punishments abroad, while being comfortable with the cuts to our own anti-doping regulator.
The AFL may argue that while it has t reduced funding to ASADA, it has increased spending on its own integrity unit. This argument is not without merit, but the idea that a company or organisation can regulate itself is contentious.
Imagine the ridicule BHP would attract if it told the people of Brazil after the Samarco tragedy last year: "Don't worry, our internal investigation unit is looking into it." Sporting codes, financial markets and corporate entities all need strong, robust and independent regulators.
The AFL tackles many social issues: racism, domestic violence, gender equality, illicit drug use, to name but a few. Critics will argue that it targets causes aligned to its commercial interests; it hasn't put a lot of energy into tackling gambling or alcohol, for instance (CrownBet and CUB are partners of the AFL).
The AFL's supporters argue that this criticism is unfair, that the AFL helps because it is in a position to do so and because it's the right thing to do. To criticise the AFL's motives for helping others is like criticising a person who donates money to charity because you feel they do it to make themselves feel better. The motives are largely irrelevant; what matters is that there is somebody on the other side of the transaction benefiting from the generosity.
Regardless of whether the AFL is driven to act for commercial realities, or because it is motivated by altruism, it makes sense for it, other sporting codes and the government to ensure ASADA is the best-funded, highest-quality outfit it can possibly be. In the long run, commercial support for sports depends on the belief that the athletes are clean. Morally, any parent introducing their child to a sport needs to believe in that ideal as well.
I don't look to the AFL to be my moral compass. I have enough 20-year-olds on Instagram telling me how I should live my life; I don't need the AFL to do the same!
The role the AFL does play in my life – and many other fans' lives – is to offer an escape from the mundaneness of everyday life. That sense of escape is greatly reduced if outstanding performances are followed by lingering doubts as to how they were achieved.