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AFL General Manager of Football Operations, Adrian Anderson, addresses the media during an AFL media conference, to detail the results of the competition's Illicit Drugs Policy, at AFL House in Melbourne.
“Remarkable, incredibly successful policy,” was how AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson described the code’s drug policy in the wake of six players testing positive for illicit drugs in 2010. Even if he was referring to a system which has seen a decrease in those numbers, there’s a paradox in the system being lauded for six positive tests that is quite concerning.
After all, how players testing positive for either cocaine or ecstasy, and one for cannabis, could be turned into such a positive story, highlights just how the three-strike policy helps manipulate the truth from an AFL perspective.
With players and clubs maintaining their anonymity until the third strike, the AFL can instead focus on numbers and percentages to prove drug taking is on the decline. Six test failures is the lowest figure since testing began, down from 14 in 2009 – 0.89 per cent down to 0.36 per cent from 1654 tests.
Looks great and clearly demonstrates a decline, but those figures should not disguise the fact that six players were on drugs forbidden by law and continued playing with a mere warning. These are six players lauded on a weekly basis, idolised by fans and children alike allowed, under the rules of the game, to continue without suspension or punishment until they have wronged three times.
As Federal Sports Minister George Brandis said at the time of the Ben Cousins – an addict who incredibly slipped through the testing cracks – drug scandal, “What the AFL needs to do is to enforce the strongest possible illicit drug policy. Its existing policy is not the strongest possible illicit drug policy.”
The AFL is one of only three sports in the country that currently has an illicit drug policy where players are tested out of competition, for which they should be applauded. But, as Brandis suggests, its execution is meek.
The concern here is twofold: what message is the AFL sending out to the wider community, and what’s the true intention behind the policy. As Brandis suggests, if the AFL is true to its values of a clean environment in which drugs are frowned upon, it cannot allow known takers to continue playing and representing the game to the wider community.
And whether it is beneficial for them to be given counseling and help away from spotlight is debatable. As the Travis Tuck case demonstrates, even the prospect of hitting your third strike won’t stop some young people, with the possibility that the consequences could be lethal by that stage. As stated previously, Cousins’ ability to avoid three strikes given the level of his addiction must surely have raised some serious alarm bells.
Surely a one-strike policy would act as the greatest deterrence, robbing players of the opportunity to get away with one or two indiscretions with no public condemnation, loss of livelihood or other recriminations. And protecting the players with anonymity, while potentially allowing them to get on the straight and narrow, can equally encourage illicit acts under the protection of second chances. Masking such acts behind closed doors is built into the system, which surely encourages abuse of that system.
One must question the motivations of the AFL’s three-strike policy, hoping it is not to save face and protect the league’s image. But when you consider the different result of a one-strike policy, you see how much damage it would do to the league’s brand.
From a PR perspective, yesterday the AFL would have named and shamed, to borrow a popular expression from current affair shows, a number of players as illicit drug takers. Given the public outcry when athletes are found under the influence, the first-strike bans would scar the code, and perpetuate the belief that drug taking is rife in the AFL. If one-strike policy existed, the number of players suspended over the last four years would be enough to field a team.
Instead, a smaller percentage of takers can be viewed as a positive for the game; a bit of public relations chicanery to cleverly mask the truth and protect all concerned – code and players alike.
It’s a worrying insight into the code’s territorial nature – protecting its public image for the greater good. In fact, it’s a worrying trend across all sports.
Think of the recent accusations of the UCI’s involvement in Lance Armstrong’s alleged drug taking, the FFA allegedly covering up Sydney FC’s salary cap breaches and other cover-ups.
The AFL’s three-strike drug policy is no different.
Follow Adrian on twitter @AdrianMusolino