Drugs in Football: My Response to the Dispatches Program

On Monday 12^th September a program aired on British television entitled ‘The Truth About Drugs In Football’.

The program made for interesting viewing, it raised several interesting points and potentially troubling questions about drugs (both recreational and performance enhancing) in the modern game, as well as the FA’s current procedures for testing and dealing with players who test positive.

The following are my thoughts on what this program showed, and the questions I think need to be answered.

The program highlighted a document that lists the 21 players that have tested positive for cannabis, two for ecstasy and 19 for cocaine or its key marker between 2003 and 2010. As we shall see later, the testing process itself is highly flawed and the actual number of players who use recreational drugs may be significantly higher than the above figures suggest.

The other worrying point raised, especially when considered with the above figures, is that there seems to be a ‘code of silence’ around the use of drugs in professional football. The program not only showed the FA’s reluctance to discuss this subject, but also that there seems to be a level of secrecy about drug use at club level too. Why?

Considering the FA wants to "kick drugs out of football", surely a more transparent testing procedure, with much less anonymity, would not only prevent this sort of uncomfortable questioning in the future, but also act as a much greater deterrent to players who use drugs.

The FA prides itself on not only being the first organisation to have banned the use of social drugs, but also to not restrict drugs testing to match days (otherwise known as non-competitive testing). The rationale is that recreational drugs harm player’s health and safety by impeding judgement and reactions on the pitch, damaging their physical health and the wider reputation of our ‘national game’.

However as the program shows, the testing process seems to be flawed, and most incidents of drug use seem to be dealt with by the parent club.

If we take at face value the claim by Dispatches that drug use is endemic in professional football, why don't we hear more about it? When a footballer is caught using drugs it becomes a media sensation. The lack of headlines hints at a cover up, either by the clubs, the FA or both.

From what the program showed, players who are found to have taken drugs are dealt with privately, without the issue being publicly released. This seems to be contrary to the wishes of both fans and teams, who rightly state that if the players they support or employ had been found guilty of using drugs, then that information should be made available.

The FA does not currently report the names of players who test positive for cocaine as it is not a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code offence, and that privacy allows for the player in question to receive the rehab and counselling they need.

If this to be made public, then surely the deterrent factor would increase. As it is, if players know that drug use will be dealt with privately and they will not have to face a ‘trial by media’ even if they are caught, then there is that much more temptation.

Considering the level of interest in football across the UK and across the world, it should be in the public interest enough for fans to know when the players they admire are taking drugs.

However, if the tests for drugs were made public, then what would be the impact? The tabloid newspapers would have a field day with their sports headlines, and there would be predictable moral outrage from the anti-drug percentage of the population.

Professional footballers have a less than stellar reputation in this country already, after depressingly regular headlines regarding sex, partying, alcohol and/or violent incidents. Adding to that an increased level of scrutiny regarding drugs and other illicit substances from the police, public and most likely parliament, and the FA would likely have to face some extremely embarrassing questions, as well as a sudden wave of criminal investigations into what might be an alarmingly large number of pro footballers.

It is no secret that there are massive amounts of money involved in football, for people at every level, and in every aspect of the game. If the reputation of football were to be tarnished by drugs, then the amount of loss through sponsorship deals, advertising and other third party endorsements would be incalculable. This is before the loss of revenue from disappointed fans and also from potential financial punishments.

Is there, therefore, a reluctance amongst the football community for players to be found guilty of taking banned substances (not just social drugs, but also performance enhancing ones)? There have been 15 investigations into the use of testosterone by professional footballers and all have been kept from the public domain. All, also, were found not guilty. In fact, no premiership footballer has yet been found guilty of taking anabolic steroids.

For those players that are found guilty, the punishments meted out to them seem to be a lot less severe than in other sports. Players caught taking drugs on match days face a two-year ban. This seems to be a standard punishment across sports in general. However, in football the punishments seem to be less than a year in length, with some being as little as two months.

Why is football so inconsistent with the rest of the sporting world? Again, I believe it comes down to money, and the special status football has within our national and cultural psyche. England has had much more success in recent years in international rugby and cricket, and yet we are gripped by international football tournaments with a fervour that is not seen anywhere else.

A very interesting (and utterly hypothetical) scenario would be if several key international players were forced to miss a major international tournament due to testing positive for drug use. It is an easy assumption that the level of opprobrium against those players would significantly increase in the wake of such an incident, and the issue of drugs in football would be brought into much sharper focus than it is currently.

So just what is currently being done in regards to the testing of players? The FA insists it does more tests for doping, but considering the number of footballers there are, these increased numbers are not necessarily indicative of a higher percentage of athletes being tested when compared to other sports.

It is mentioned that some footballers can go to between two to three years between drug tests. A case study mentioned on the program was that of a Millwall footballer by the name of Richard Sadlier. He states that during his seven year career in football he was never tested once.

This issue of delays between tests is compounded by what occurs when players are absent when tests are due to be done. In these situations the tests are simply abandoned.

There are obvious flaws in this system, especially when added to the transparency and potential cover-up actions mentioned above. The program highlights the Italian system, where two players from each team are tested after every Serie A game. This seems to be a simpler and potentially much more effective method of testing both in terms of practicality and deterrent against doping of any kind.

There do seem to be problems in football with regards to drugs, especially recreational ones. The cynical viewpoint is that this is hardly surprising. An enormous amount of money and prestige is given to young men and, with drugs being as available as they are, one can assume it is only a matter of time before footballers start experimenting.

How much of a problem this issue is at present is another matter. We are unlikely to know the true picture any time soon however, unless radical changes are made to the FA testing policies.