Breheny Beat: Amateur players should not be subjected to drug-testing
Wednesday May 9th 2007
So players, managers and supporters aren’t the only ones sniffing the early summer air for the waft of the approaching championships.
Snouts are quivering in the undergrowth too as the Irish Sports Council’s doping inspectors prepare for another season of fearless sleuthing.
Their targets are those deeply suspicious characters who populate the GAA championships.
You couldn’t be up to the boys of summer.
They might look the essence of innocence as they head for the dressing-room in their sponsored gear, swigging from their designer drinks but what’s in those bottles?
And what about when they complain of a sore throat?
Why is Protective Irish Mammy (PIM) glancing out the window before she reaches for the cold remedy?
Keeping an eye out for a doping officer?
She fears that the ingredients may contain more than something to soothe an irritating cough.
There could be stuff in there that would power a small tractor but, since she doesn’t have time to take a medical degree to help understand the labelling, there’s only one solution. Spoon and be d**ned.
The concept of a PIM feeding what she regarded as a standard cough mixture to her son which could inadvertently leave him in danger of being branded a drugs cheat, is by no means far-fetched.
Granted, the threat is greater from food supplements that may be purchased in all innocence but which could contain a banned substance.
GAA Player Welfare Officer, Paraic Duffy has reminded players to be extra vigilant during the championships when the testing blitz is at its most intense.
Nor is it confined to match days as a doping officer can turn up at a training session too.
And that’s where the line has been crossed between what’s acceptable and what’s not.
The idea that an amateur player spends a long day at work, drives to training, has a two-hour session and then has to produce a urine sample for analysis before he heads home is wrong.
Actually, it’s perverse.
While the player who is to be tested spends the afternoon in question working to earn a living, the Irish Sports Council doping officer is driving through the lovely countryside, taking in the views and listening to the car radio as he/she zeroes in on an unsuspecting target.
Of course, unlike the player, the doping officer is being paid.
Nobody is suggesting that GAA players should be totally immune from testing as every sport is at risk from drug cheats.
However, it’s indefensible that amateurs, whose sports have no international dimension (well not anymore!) and where there is no evidence of wrong-doing, should be subjected to precisely the same strict testing criteria as disciplines where drugs improve performance and where cheating has been proven.
The GAA authorities were unhappy with the introduction of such stringent testing a few years ago but felt they had no choice but to accept it as refusal would have meant a drastic — if indeed not a total removal — of Government grant aid.
Still, the GAA should have protested more vociferously on the issue, if only to highlight its brazenly intrusive nature.
Individual players have no deals with Government or the Sports Council and it would make a very interesting case if somebody refused to take a test on the basis that as an amateur, who performs for his own enjoyment, nobody has the right to produce a little bottle and demand a sample.
Better still, why don’t the GPA pull the plug on drug-testing, or at least use it as a bargaining lever in the battle over Government grant aid?
If they announced that from June 1 next, no player would cooperate with doping officers until such time as Government and GAA struck a meaningful deal on the controversial grants issue, it would certainly raise the temperature.
Nobody could blame the players who would be well within their rights. Since they are not employees of the GAA, what action could be taken against them?
And would the Government really withdraw all funding if the players boycotted the tests?
And wouldn’t it be lovely to see an amateur player tell a professional doping officer — politely of course — what to do with his little bottle?
Former GAA President Paddy Buggy was among those who recently questioned the validity of drugtesting GAA players.
Many agreed with Buggy because the fear is that a player will be the innocent victim of a mistake over a cough bottle or some other routine remedy and have their private and professional reputations impugned.
© Irish Independent