Fotballers and tennis people disagree with drug testing

[gonzo]

BBC SPORT | Football | Fifa fights for Wada code rethink

Well, not to all of drugs testing, but just to quite the level that athletics and cycling have.

I couldn't decide where to put it (racing, freewheeling, the pub or P&OBI so please feel free to move it mods)

[clarion]

If they've nothing to hide, there's nothing to fear, eh?

[GruB]

Yes.  Me is starting to thinks they protesteth too much.

[Regulator]

Can you imagine all the positive results for cocaine and Viagra amongst the footballers?  WADA would have a field day... 

[Moloko]

Can you imagine all the positive results for cocaine and Viagra amongst the footballers?  WADA would have a field day... 

Viagra isn't used for performance enhancing on the pitch, it's used for the team showers afterwards.

[Greenbank]

Footballers are tested regularly anyway. After each premiership game they usually pick 3 from each team and take samples from them. They also turn up at the training grounds and pick random players for testing. (Including, famously, forcing a Muslim to drink water during Ramadan in order to provide a sample¹. The testers refused to wait until sundown. How's that for respecting religious beliefs.)

They're objecting to the "location for an hour a day" notifications that they would have to give WADA. They'd have to specify in advance (but you are able to change it right up until the last minute but it's a hassle) exactly where you'll be for an hour each and every day, no matter whether you're on holiday, whether it's Christmas day, etc, no exceptions.

Miss 3 of these in the space of a year and you're in for lots of fun like Christine Ohuruogu.

I know a few people involved in anti-doping (sports lawyers, anti-doping officials for the Olympics and one guy who has the lovely job of collecting the samples from the players and watching to ensure it's definitely their urine) and they agree that the WADA rules are draconian.

Arse, this means I agree with something Sepp Blatter has said.

If they've nothing to hide, there's nothing to fear, eh?

That's not the point. They're not objecting to the testing (they get tested regularly anyway) but the way they have to notify people of their whereabouts in advance.

1.          City say Negouai drug test 'violated' Ramadan |
            Football |
            The Guardian
   

[Regulator]

The Christian Negouai story is a red herring.  Islam allows exceptions to the fasting rules on medical and legal grounds (as does Christianity on its fasting days).  Negouai would not have been considered to have broken any fasting rules in complying with a testing requirement.

[Greenbank]

Fair enough, but that was just a side point.

Actually, rereading the stuff saves me from agreeing with Blatter:-

"
A Fifa statement outlined a proposal where doping testers would be able to visit team training facilities six days a week with a hiatus between the end and start of the season "so that the privacy of players can be respected".
"

A hiatus between the end and start of the season is unworkable. 4 months is plenty of time to dope up and then flush anything traceable out of your system. It's not as if the players don't go to training during this period anyway.

Random testing at the training grounds (which is what they do anyway) with special measures for people injured or not taking part in training. One day off a week from possible testing isn't enough time to get any doping done.

And they do send anti-doping officials on aeroplanes to meet footballers on holiday to test them, it's one of the perks of the "taking the piss" job apparently.

[Tourist Tony]

Remind me again how little footballers get paid for this inconvenience......

[Gus]

Remind me again how little footballers get paid for this inconvenience......

 

[simonp]

I agree with Alex, the whereabouts regulations are draconian, and there's no suggestion in the article that Tennis players have objected to drug testing, merely to the whereabouts stuff.

If you were required to notify your whereabouts for an hour a day for the entire year, you'd squeal like a stuck pig.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Well yes, but I'm not on £50 000 per week and it's not a requirement of my job.

[Gus]

That's the name of the game, if you want to be in the top in many sports.
Cycling, cross country skiing and athletics are just some of them. If they visit you and you aren't home you get a warning, Three warnings equal quarantine.

What might happen if they want go into WADA's rules are they get kicked out of the Olympics

[David Martin]

That's the name of the game, if you want to be in the top in many sports.
Cycling, cross country skiing and athletics are just some of them. If they visit you and you aren't home you get a warning, Three warnings equal quarantine.

What might happen if they want go into WADA's rules are they get kicked out of the Olympics

More seriously, they may lose access to government grants for sports development work.

..d

[Greenbank]

Well yes, but I'm not on £50 000 per week and it's not a requirement of my job.

It applies to lower league footballers earning £250 a week.

[David Martin]

Well yes, but I'm not on £50 000 per week and it's not a requirement of my job.

It applies to lower league footballers earning £250 a week.

I don't see why it is so onerous? The league schedules are known well in advance. The training ground times are well known. It is only the off days they need to worry about. And as one says, it comes with the territory. The chance of being tested is low and, despite protests, there is a history of PED in professional football.

Wherabouts system also applies to amateur cyclists, not just the pros.

..d

[Greenbank]

The major complaint is that it strips spontaneity from their lives.

[David Martin]

The major complaint is that it strips spontaneity from their lives.

So they can't use text messages? The wherabouts system used by the UCI allows reasonable spontaneity.


..d

[andygates]

Really?  Seems to almost everyone involved in it that the whereabouts system is a hugely annoying, intrusive bear of a system that's only acceptable because of the enormous level of doping in the first place.

[oncemore]

If I had their money I wouldn't know where I'd BEEN never mind where I was going to be...

[David Martin]

Really?  Seems to almost everyone involved in it that the whereabouts system is a hugely annoying, intrusive bear of a system that's only acceptable because of the enormous level of doping in the first place.

The WADA one is poor. The one used by cycling is supposed to be much better (ie you can notify changes by text message etc.)

..d

[Greenbank]

The WADA one is poor.

This being one of the points of the original complaint by the footballers and tennis players.

The other points (like the off-season testing hiatus) are just laughable.

"Please Mr Pound, can we have 3 months off testing so that we can dope ourselves up to the eyeballs and have time to get clean again before the next season starts."