The AFL wants us to believe it’s getting serious about illicit drugs. But, I’m just not entirely convinced they want to catch anyone taking them.
From January 1, AFL and AFLW players will be subject to twice-yearly hair testing, typically at the beginning of the year and following the mid-season bye. With hair testing capable of detecting certain substances consumed months earlier, it sounds like a significant crackdown. But I have one question. Why give everyone so much warning?
It’s a bit like telling a company exactly when its books are going to be audited. You’d think the accountants would be making sure the books all looked pretty spotless by the time the auditors arrived. And in reality, that’s probably exactly what the AFL wants.
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There’s a big difference between wanting a drug-free competition and wanting a competition free of positive drug tests that the media would have a field day of. Right now, I can’t help wondering which one the AFL is more interested in.
I should make something clear. I’m not writing this from a position of moral superiority, nor am I particularly interested in catching footballers doing the wrong thing.
Illicit drug use isn’t something confined to professional sport. Many don’t want to admit but it’s a reality of modern society, particularly among young people, and pretending otherwise would be naive. Athletes are human beings who make mistakes, face social pressures and deserve support rather than automatic public humiliation.
But I also believe professional athletes should be held to a higher standard.
When you’re earning hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars to play a sport that children idolise, there are expectations that come with that privilege. Whether you like it or not, you’re a role model.
I spent years representing Australia with the Hockeyroos, earning a pittance of what many AFL players take home. We were part of testing pools where drug testers could turn up throughout the year, without warning.
It wasn’t particularly glamorous, nobody was paying us millions to put up with it, but it was part of being an elite athlete so we abided by it. Speaking to many Olympians this past week, we all thought similar – we wouldn’t dream of compromising our career, our team or our integrity while we were playing.
And it was the unpredictability of testing that was the point. You couldn’t simply circle a date on the calendar and prepare accordingly which is why I find the AFL’s approach so curious.
With the Pullman Five saga involving Sydney players and the recent Carlton controversy bringing illicit drugs back into the headlines, the league understandably wants to demonstrate that it’s taking the issue seriously. And to be fair, introducing ongoing hair testing is a step in the right direction. A test that can look back several months is a much more substantial deterrent than one that only detects the past few days. One is a gamble you may be willing to take, another doesn’t seem quite worth it.
But announcing the approximate testing windows surely takes some of the sting out of it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a few players suddenly develop an interest in peroxide or considerably shorter hairstyles (although the AFLW players might have a harder time explaining away an entire competition of freshly shaved heads) and I wonder whether the AFL has considered how to deal with attempts to avoid testing.
Perhaps the advance warning is deliberate. Perhaps the AFL wants to give players an opportunity to change their behaviour before the new regime begins.
If that’s the case, I can understand the thinking. Prevention is surely better than punishment. But changing your behaviour because you know a test is approaching isn’t necessarily the same as changing your behaviour for good. I don’t want to see players caught taking illicit drugs. I’d much rather see them stop taking them in the first place.
But if the league genuinely wants to change the culture, rather than simply improve the headlines, it needs to be prepared to find out what’s actually happening.
Because the real measure of a successful drug policy shouldn’t be how many players manage to pass the test. It should be whether fewer players are taking drugs in the first place.
