- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
The recent revelation about Geelong playmaker Matthew Stokes’ alleged involvement in supplying cocaine, highlights yet another problem with the AFL’s drug policy and the ‘three strikes and you are out’ system.
The AFL drug testing regime has not publicly singled out any one player for drug abuse or sidelined them for three strikes, yet there have been three major drug incidents involving AFL players in just the past few years:
· West Coast Eagles players investigated for possessing and supplying illegal drugs
· Ben Cousins public case of drug abuse and addiction, apparently confirmed by confessions from his father
· Matthew Stokes’ drugs dealing charges
Yet the AFL continues to report the success of its program and the continued downward trend in drug cheating amongst its players.
The police dropped all charges against Cousins and the AFL even cleared him of any wrong doing so he could play for Richmond again.
Through all the dramas, the clubs and the AFL Commission have publicly denied any knowledge of the illegal activities or being contacted by the police drug squad while the players were being investigated by the police.
And once the news is made public, the AFL Commission seems to be just as surprised as anyone that the star players of the ‘game that made Australia’ could do anything illegal, especially taking and distributing illegal drugs.
The main shortcomings of the AFL’s policy are that:
· the scheme is totally administered by the AFL – not independent drug testers,
· The results of the testing are not released to the public,
· The AFL decides which reports to publish and what information to release to the public,
· The AFL keeps the statistics on the drug tests and comments on the effectiveness of the scheme and whether drug abuse amongst its players is improving or not.
By not being truly independent the AFL is setting itself up for criticism.
Some harsh critics of the AFL Commission have even labelled the AFL’s Drugs Policy as just a smokescreen to protect their star players from public scrutiny about illegal drug uses and abuses.
In recent years it does seem that the only ones catching star AFL players involved in illegal drugs and telling the public about it are the various state police drug squads, and not the AFL itself.
The AFL’s Illegal Drug Use Detection Scheme is clearly not working.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.