Retired Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel lifts the lid on off-season drug testing in the AFL
GEELONG great Jimmy Bartel has lifted the lid on the difficulties of off-season drug testing after several clubs were fined for sloppy whereabouts information.
Seven AFL clubs — Hawthorn, West Coast, Geelong, Collingwood, Essendon, Western Bulldogs and St Kilda — were this week fined a total of $25,000 by the league.
No tests were missed, but the clubs were sanctioned for what the AFL said were failures “administrative in nature and not intentional”. AFL players can be tested 365 days of the year for WADA prohibited drugs.
Bartel, who last month called an end to a decorated 305-game career, said there was nothing sinister about the fines.
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“Every club has to put in whereabouts for their end of season leave — for everywhere,” Bartel said.
“If I’m going to Wodonga for a night to visit a cousin I have to put in ‘Wodonga, the hotel, the hotel address, the day I’ll be there’.
“If you’re backpacking through Europe you have to say ‘I’m here for two days ... staying at the Flying Pig Hostel in Amsterdam’ and if you stay longer you have to update it.
“The poor player welfare officer is normally the one lumped with it. He has to fill it out for 40-something players, so there could be 300 or 400 entries and every time you miss one there’s a fine.”
Bartel told Radio Sports National he was required to provide urine and hair samples during his final AFL season.
“It’s just a part of life. You can’t be insecure ... a lot of people don’t realise how invasive the urine testing is,” he said.
“It’s ‘pull your pants down to your ankles, pull your shirt up under your chin’ and someone stands there and watches you wee into a cup and you keep going until you have the minimum amount, which is a fair bit.
“Someone is in your personal space, to say the least.”