After 22 years, the AFL’s absurd pretence is over. It’s about time |
Illicit drug use by footballers is the arena where the AFL’s objectives of protecting players’ health and protection of the league’s brand have often collided with the force of a shirtfront.
From the outset, the drug policy sought to keep vulnerable or cavalier players from succumbing to drug addition or misuse, but also implicitly pandered to the section of the community that took a punitive, Old Testament view of drug use.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon.Credit: AFL Photos
The AFL wanted to keep players healthy and to avoid mass suspensions for positive tests on game day under the separate WADA code that covers performance enhancement. To meet these objectives, it embraced a confidential medical model for drug treatment.
Conversely, the AFL also needed to retain political and government support. This meant treading a line between the players’ willingness to accept an invasive testing/treatment regime, and avoiding the reputational damage of players being seen to be abusing illicit drugs, without repercussions.
Ever brand conscious – and government appeasing – the AFL did not wish to appear permissive about drug use; thus, they bowed, to some extent, to narcotic correctness.
Ever since West Coast were investigated for a drug problem within the playing group from 2007-08, in the aftermath of Ben Cousins’ visible descent, the AFL has balanced expert-led treatment with public relations.
And so was born the misleading notion of illicit drug “strikes” – a system that was promoted as punitive, when the reality was that the strikes were a ship that never reached the dock. Exemptions were created to avoid that scenario.
The system for drug-use detection and treatment evolved into one in which players with drug issues – fallen Eagles and numerous others around the competition over two decades – were never struck out.