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Nothing like a click bait headline two hours before the first game of the season! On the eve of AFL season 2016, News Corp published a piece that claimed 11 Collingwood players tested positive for illict drugs over the off-season.
This then forced Collingwood president Eddie McGuire to go on national TV, pour water on the dumpster fire handed to him and start off the mainstream news cycle.
Expect another 72 hours of drug talk and stones being thrown from glasshouses.
Now I totally understand the news value in this. Firstly, it’s Collingwood. The biggest, most polarising club in Australia, one who often brings the attention on themselves. Second, is recent history.
Collingwood duo Josh Thomas and Lachie Keeffe are currently serving bans for taking using illicit drugs (cocaine) that contained performance-enhancing drugs.
Thirdly, finally and most importantly, it’s just really embarrassing for the AFL. Just hours before the ball bounces on season 2016, the much-maligned drug policy is back in the public consciousness. Using Collingwood as the headline vehicle only makes the embarrassment greater, especially given what we examined above.
Mark Evans, AFL general manager of football operations, fronted the media this morning and basically downplayed the issue. Kicking the can down the road for another day. “This is the first year of the policy’s operation, and I ask that the new policy be given a chance to be in operation and measured for its impact before we demand new changes,” Evans said.
Fundamentally, we should all agree with Evans. The hair testing regime is in its infancy and needs more time, and a larger data sample, before sweeping changes are made. But in a media landscape where every armchair expert can throw fuel on the fire, snap judgments must be made. Collingwood must be chastised and the character of its players questioned.
The issue isn’t Collingwood, it’s the broader undertone. Let’s go over the headline from Thursday night again: Collingwood was in the top three clubs for players testing positive over the off-season. Collingwood aren’t the key point here, it’s the words “top three clubs”. As in, there are two bigger culprits than Collingwood.
Don’t feel sorry for Collingwood, they benefit from the overhyping media machine more than anyone. Heck, I’m doing just that with this article. But let’s not lose sight of the bigger issues. The ‘what’ and ‘why’ are much more important than the ‘who’ in this case.
And this circles into my biggest issue of all: does it matter that AFL players use illicit drugs? Does it matter that a quarter of three different clubs allegedly used illicit drugs during the off-season?
It all comes back to the age-old debate of athletes being a separate subset of society. Something Evans noted this morning: “The use of illicit drugs affects all sections of society, including AFL players, but testing results continue to indicate levels of use below the general public.”
We ask AFL players, and all athletes for that matter, to sacrifice so many aspects of everyday life to fulfil their dreams. No alcohol binges, no public embarrassments, nothing that upsets the applecart.
Don’t get me wrong, these boys are overcompensated for what they do. They live a charmed life, one that almost every Australian would take in a split second. I know I would. But we can’t forget that all footballers are humans first and athletes second, not the other way around.
Everyone needs a vice, a distraction from everyday life, regardless of how successful they are.
We take away almost every vice from AFL footballers and expect them to be perfect 24/7, 365 days a year. This is too high a standard for any group of people, let alone a group of highly strung 20-somethings that are often ill equipped to handle their career choice. Ill equipped in terms of mental skills, not physical makeup.
AFL footballers aren’t Rhode Scholars, they are young men who in many cases put education second to pursue athletic careers.
All I’m saying is that a rush to judgment is a step too far. I’m no doctor, psychiatrist or industry expert but it seems normal that footy players would let their hair down during the off-season. The one period every year in which they can take a holiday and act like normal people. Once again the human inclination.
In my 25 years of life, I’ve never had a drugs phase, but that isn’t to big note myself. A combination of previous family tragedies and a general lack of interest kept me away. But I still made mistakes; it’s just that I had other vices.
I had alcohol, I had junk food that I could binge on and I had the ability to escape real life for Europe any time I wanted. I could go out on a Saturday night, make a mess of myself and worry about the consequence when I awoke. Professional athletes don’t have this ability.
The rush to judgment is too much. Take this tweet from journalist Stephen Quartermain for example:
Don't give me the rubbish about footballers being a reflection of society
It's beyond me that professional athletes would take illicit drugs— Stephen Quartermain (@Quartermain10) March 24, 2016
Why is it beyond you, Stephen? Illicit drugs are bad, we all know that, but they are commonplace in almost every 2016 social scene.
Now I like Quartermain. He was good on TV and I still bust out the AFL media app every weekend to catch his thoughts from halfway across the country. And to be fair, he is just one of many who feel this way. But I feel this standard is too high.
It doesn’t impact me one iota if the entire Collingwood list used illicit drugs over the break, but I’m near certain my thoughts represent the minority.
The public relations disaster of such an image cannot be underestimated. I appreciate sporting leagues like the AFL must be seen as change drivers, not facilitators of behaviour many society leaders question.
But the real focus should be on ensuring athletes are mentally equipped to deal with the 21st century limelight, not whether they occasionally slip back into real life and succumb to common vices.
Institutional support, not snap judgments and widespread criticism.
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