Sport's drug crisis: why has rugby been immune?

Why has rugby union been immune to drugs in sport scandal? How can we really know it has been bypassed by the chemists and criminals of the world?

Since the Australian Crime Commission report about drugs in sport in Australia was released it seems that rugby union has largely been untouched by any of its broad-brush findings.

The ARU has pledged to expand the Integrity Unit to ensure there isn’t any instances of drug use now and in the future of the sport in Australia. Bill Pulver told The Australian after the ACC report was released that “There is no current investigation of any of these matters in relation to rugby.”

He told the press-conference at the initial release of the report he was, “quite proud of our record [but] it would be naïve of the ARU to think this is not an issue for Australian sports.”

Drew Mitchell and other players spoke out in support of the ARU in saying that they didn’t think drugs were being used in elite level Australian rugby either. Stephen Moore also took to Twitter the day the report was released to say he hadn’t ever encountered them in his time in rugby either.

Why is it that rugby, apparently, doesn’t have a problem with criminal activity and drugs in particular?

Well, to begin with, rugby union isn’t completely free of charges when it comes to drug use in the sport. The IRB has been testing players since 2007. Testing has turned up 21 positive results in 2012 and 53 positives in 2011. The total number of tests in 2012 was 1542. That makes the percentage of positive results for the year around 1%, a low figure on face value.

The hard part to understand on face value is that there were only 1542 tests done through the IRB in that year. There were 330 Wallabies names in the game-day 22 in 2012 alone throughout the 15 tests played. That is just game-day players, not squads in training or extended units on other days.

And then you need to multiply all those player numbers across the other international representative players in Test matches during that calendar year.

The ARU has committed to carrying out 220 tests in 2013 for players in the “Wallabies, Super Rugby and Australian Men’s and Women’s Sevens teams”.

To me, that is a small number of tests if you are serious about making it hard for professional athletes to dope. Many players won’t be tested at all throughout 2013. That is essentially what they are admitting.

Why is Australian rugby free from drug charges? Maybe because they aren’t looking very hard for cheats.

PEDS can be a hook for a criminal network to hold onto a player or group of players within a sport. This hook can then be used to influence the outcome of matches or provide inside information that can be exploited somewhere else.

As Deepthroat said in one of the most famous investigations “follow the money”. Where there is money there is criminal activity.

You only have to look at the widespread, and in some countries loosely monitored, betting industry that has sprung up around football to see there are great opportunities for criminals to try and make a buck or two.

Look at the Europol investigation into European football matches to see just what kind of money is at stake. It has been said that the estimates in the current Europol investigation are severely safe ones (read: nowhere near high enough).

Grantland staff-writer put together a simple narrative to describe how the Beautiful Game is exploited by gangsters in Asia. Effectively the worldwide nature of the crimes it is very hard to catch people doing wrong or, indeed, put them behind bars.

The fact is sport isn’t just a past time or fan driven experience anymore. Sports are a multi-national ruthless business environment. In Australia perhaps the most successful transition from local club driven league to market dominant business is the AFL.

And the AFL happens to be one of the leagues to which drugs are linked most heavily. The second most successful league in pursuit of business-like market domination has been the NRL, another league where use of PEDs has been suspected.

The other sport that needs to watch its back like a hawk is football – in particular the A-League – because of its worldwide roots. The A-League is already a competition of choice for many betting rings in Asia.

This is worth being strongly in control of as it begins to win more mainstream fans and now has a more prominent media deal.

You only have to look at sports like football and cycling to see that privatisation of teams and competitors means that the sport has much, much more money flowing through it than ever before. The cheats might not even need a criminal element to look at cheating as a viable option – the player contracts in some sports are worth it all on their own to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Rugby union on the other hand, has yet to capitalise on the ‘market’ that exists for sport in this country.

Thus, it isn’t such an appealing target for criminal elements and PEDs. The incentives aren’t as big. As rugby learns to compete with the big boys for the almighty dollar it will become a bigger target from the outside.

So, why has rugby, so far, been largely free from drug scandal? There seems to be two fairly good reasons for this.

Rugby doesn’t really do a whole lot to find people who are cheating. This probably means there are more cheats than it appears on the surface.

The lack of privatisation and market dominance make it unlikely criminal elements would choose rugby as a target to make a dollar on the shady side. This might not always be the case and should be watched closely.

Are there other reasons you can think of?