Melbourne Demons ran off-the-books drug tests, doctor claims

Wilkie tried to table documents about the alleged improper drug practices in parliament on Wednesday, but his bid was denied by MPs who voted 51-15 against the motion in the House of Representatives.

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Dillon told reporters the practice described by Wilkie was in line with the clinical intervention model doctors used when dealing with players who were vulnerable to using illicit drugs. The AFL said it was incumbent on officials to ensure players who might have illicit substances in their system were withdrawn from matches rather than play while affected by any drug categorised as performance-enhancing under the WADA Code.

Dillon claimed the number of players regularly tested under the system was low, but admitted the AFL did not make public the number of players who tested positive to illicit drugs. The league has stayed silent on that number since 2016.

“The private medical information of the players is private medical information and that is what we prioritise above everything else,” Dillon said. “What we are talking about here is a small handful of players over a year.”

Dillon said he was not planning to talk to Wilkie about the concerns he raised.

Speaking to media earlier on Wednesday, Goodwin said he was unaware of the alleged practices.

“That’s information that I’ve got no idea about,” he said.

“I think it’s a surprise to everyone in the industry because there’s no line of sight for me in my position as a head coach.

“So I understand the policy, but I don’t get the information that people would expect to get, so it’s news to me.”

The AFL said its illicit drug policy was focused on the health and wellbeing of players who used illicit substances out of competition.

“Urine tests conducted by doctors to determine if a player has used illicit substances are part of the AFL’s illicit drug policy medical model and have been for some time,” the league said in a statement.

“Doctors may use those urine tests to obtain an immediate result to determine whether any illicit substance remains in a player’s system. This is normally conducted at the club or in the doctor’s consulting rooms.

“If the test shows a substance is still in the player’s system, a doctor will take steps to prevent a player from taking part in either training and/or an AFL match both for their own health and welfare and because having illicit substances in your system on match day may be deemed performance-enhancing and a breach of the Australian Football Anti-Doping Code (depending on the substance involved).”

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The statement said it was “absolutely imperative” that no doctor or official “should ever allow or encourage a player to take the field knowing they have recently taken an illicit substance that may be harmful to their health and/or may be deemed performance-enhancing”.

Wilkie, the MP for the Tasmanian seat of Clark, told parliament on Tuesday night that Dr Zeeshan Arain, who worked as Demons doctor from 2014 to 2020, provided him with a signed statement, which he read out in parliament.

“Here is what happens as has been described to me. The AFL wants the player to play at all costs and so the cover-up begins. If there are no illegal drugs in the player’s system, they are free to play. If there are drugs in their system, the player is often asked to fake an injury,” Wilkie said.

“In other words, hundreds of thousands of Australians will watch the game not knowing that the game has been secretly manipulated by the AFL.”

Wilkie also said Arain had written that “this isn’t just a Melbourne problem, this is an AFL problem with multiple players coming to Melbourne from other teams with pre-existing cocaine dependencies”. The politician said in parliament that the revelations “indicated that drug-testing workarounds are, in fact, commonplace elsewhere in the AFL”.

Wilkie’s motion to table the documents on Wednesday was supported by independents Zoe Daniel, Monique Ryan, Zali Stegall and Andrew Gee. Rebekah Sharkie, of the Centre Alliance Party, described the allegations as “horrific” and urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to investigate them.

“It’s hard to know whether I was more horrified by those allegations, or the fact that leave was not granted to allow the member for Clark to table these documents,” Sharkie said. “The call is on the prime minister to read these documents.”

In outlining her support, Daniel, who represents the Victorian electorate of Goldstein, said: “These allegations are serious, they go to whistleblower protection – which is grossly inadequate in this country, and it’s the reason we’re forced to talk about this under privilege this morning.

“Goldstein, in many ways, is the Demons’ heartland, and as an Essendon supporter, I know what drug scandals can do to clubs. There is zero benefit to me of speaking to this motion, but there is a cost of not fully examining these allegations and releasing these documents to sport.”

Goodwin said the claims aired by Wilkie did not make him second-guess information he was given by club doctors.

“You just take it on face value, and as I said, this is a process that the AFL, the [AFL Players Association] and the club doctors put together from a confidentiality perspective,” he said.

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“So to have no line of sight is not unusual. But I’ve got enormous trust in our doctor in terms of them being able to do their job. So I’m not going to question how they go about their business.”

Melbourne’s Joel Smith is facing anti-doping charges after testing positive to cocaine on game day last year after random testing conducted by Sport Integrity Australia detected the substance in his system. He is also facing trafficking charges – not criminal charges, but for trafficking as defined under anti-doping legislation – after SIA examined his phone.

In parliament on Tuesday night, Wilkie described the allegations as deeply troubling.

Joel’s father, former Melbourne player Shaun Smith, took aim at what he described as a “toxic” AFL culture, calling for a major overhaul of the illicit drugs policy.

“They are covering stuff up. It’s not just an issue with Melbourne, it’s with the AFL as a whole,” Smith told this masthead on Wednesday.

“When you think about it, they are doing testing that is going against WADA and ASADA [SIA], which is just mind-boggling. They [AFL] have said they are basically letting players avoid being caught. That’s what the AFL have admitted. I find that absolutely astounding.”

He said the revelations did not excuse Joel’s actions.

Sports medicine doctor Peter Larkins told radio station Nova 100 that the system described by Wilkie was “deliberately put in place to assist players to get off substances … if they were caught up in societal drug use. And so, the club doctor and the AFL’s medical director were the only two people aware of this system when a player tested positive and a player could self-report.”

He said “every club doctor had that arrangement with the AFL, all 18 clubs”.

The AFL’s illicit drugs policy sits alongside the league’s anti-doping code. It is a medical model with players who are found through AFL testing to have used illicit drugs subject to target testing from the AFL.

They are treated confidentially, with only the club doctor and the AFL chief medical officer aware of their situation under the policy unless they test positive three times. Only Travis Tuck has recorded three strikes under the system.

The policy, introduced in 2005, was voluntarily entered into by players to gauge the level of illicit drug use in the game and support individual players.

The AFL Doctors Association issued a statement supporting the policy and said it was “not meant to be punitive and over the years has been based on trust and confidentiality between the player and club doctor”.

“The club doctors’ prime responsibility is, and always will be, the health and wellbeing of the athlete,” the doctors association said.

“The suggestion that this unique privilege has been somehow manipulated is simply not true. Such comments are disappointing, and represent a distortion of a process aimed at supporting player welfare.”

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