What actually happens to an AFL player with a drug issue and why

The player can be tested, at the behest of the club doctor and with the imprimatur of the AFL’s medical officer.

The player, if he is continuing to use cocaine or another substance, could be instructed to sit out of games for a period. The AFL’s doctor who runs the illicit drugs code, Dr Peter Harcourt (named by Wilkie in allegations that originated from an ex-Melbourne Football Club doctor), regularly consults the relevant club doctor.

The AFL’s view is that this is simply normal clinical practice: the player has an issue, he deals with the club doctor, who can refer him to drug experts for treatment if necessary. Drugs, thus, are treated as a health problem, not moral failure.

The AFL is unapologetic about the fact that they have effectively condoned or encouraged doctors to test players for illicit drugs with the aim of stopping that player from having a positive test on game day – which brings severe repercussions, usually a lengthy suspension under the AFL anti-doping code (same as the WADA code).

But one source familiar with how this regime works noted that the doctor(s) would only organise for the player to be drug tested on Monday or Tuesday – early in the week – and not as late as two or three days before the game.

One reason for the test early in the week was that the tests used by the AFL/club doctor did not have the same level of hyper-sensitivity as those used by Sports Integrity Australia, which could pick up even a tiny presence of the metabolite for cocaine et al.

So, why has the AFL found itself castigated on the floor of federal parliament?

In part, as key people within the game acknowledge, there is a contradiction between a system that is designed to help players – the so-called “medical model” – and a legalistic approach that involves punitive action.

“You can’t throw the book at someone as well as look after them,” said one well-placed competition source with an understanding of the drug system, who was not authorised to speak.

The AFL, meanwhile, has a major brand protection imperative. They do not want to look like they’re soft on or tolerant of footballers openly partaking of drugs, in the manner of Ben Cousins and others in the past. There’s a pressure to be narcotically correct from governments and sponsors.

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The AFL is trying to stave off match-day positives that will result in suspensions (confusing much of the public, as the illicit and WADA drug codes are conflated), want to protect the competition image/brand and also to reduce the prevalence and health risks of players using drugs.

Much of what goes on has been known to sections of the media, to the clubs and indeed, to informed members of the public for a long time, the AFL testing/rehabilitation system having existed since 2005.

But Wilkie’s revelation that, as outlined by the ex-Melbourne club doctor, that players had been tested days before the game, with the goal of evading or circumventing a WADA code positive (and suspension) was probably unknown to most outside the medical fraternity in the game. This was the headline.

What this exposes is the vast gap between how the AFL presents its drug-testing regime – as one that has a genuine punitive element – and the reality that there are negligible public consequences for the player; what happens is hidden, unless he runs foul of SIA.

The only players who bear a public consequence for illicit substance use is those who are filmed, such as Bailey Smith or Jack Ginnivan, or appear in court.

It is also part of what this column sees as a culture of concealment by the league.

One of the AFL’s underlying constraints is that the players will not agree to a system that puts them in the crosshairs of public admonishment or sanctions.

No player has ever been “struck out” by a second or third AFL-sanctioned positive test under the illicit drugs policy since it was introduced.

This fact – more than any contrary rhetoric from the AFL – confirms that the system is a medical one, that there are no “strikes” per se and that the league has wilfully allowed a false view of their illicit drug policy to flourish in the public’s mind.

On Tuesday night, Wilkie’s statement, with cover of parliamentary privilege, closed some of the gap between the reality of how a secretive drug-testing regime operates and what the football public knows.

Tellingly, the AFL’s response was hardly one of denial. They defended their practices, rather than denying them.

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