Scottish players and drug tests

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Scottish players and drug tests Garry O’Connor, the international footballer, has had problems with passing drugs tests in the past. He has recently come back to play for his first team, Hibernian, in the Scottish Premier League. In the past he has been banned from the sport for failing drugs tests and despite claims that he is clean, he is waiting for the results of a court case against him.

The Football Association has long had the right to keep the names of players who have failed drugs tests for using only recreational rather than enhancing substances, confidential. Indeed, O’Connor was permitted to serve his first ban in secret. The Association has long claimed that players have the right to face their addictions in their private lives and not have public shame forced upon them.

There is however an alternative side to the argument that claims that if players were to be named when they used recreational drugs it would act as a strong incentive not to do them in the first place. Football players can go onto become role models for young people and they should not have secret drug addictions. That said, it does not seem from the information that has been compiled by Sporting Intelligence, that there is a major drug problem in UK football – most players are testing clean.

Some people have criticised the sport for being too focused on the recreational side of the equation, saying that investigating players for the use of performance enhancing substances is far more important. It could be said that recreational substances are private to an individual but the use of performance substances can influence the sport. Some have even said there should be no testing at all and that the controversy around the use of recreational drugs just detracts from the real issue of performance enhancing drugs.

Wada, the drug testing authority, has said they have a general dissatisfaction with the way that testing is conducted in the sport. In a statement they have said, “The sport doesn’t think that it has a problem because the number of failed tests is low. This suggests to us that a more detailed investigation into doping should be conducted as people are known to be able to cheat drugs tests.”

The government maintain that there should be a zero tolerance policy on drugs and Sebastian Coe has said that, “The idea that there should be lesser penalties for recreational drugs is morally bankrupt.”

Football offensive behaviour law may not be legal

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Football offensive behaviour law may not be legal Members of the Scottish Parliament have been cautioned by a notable academic that changing the law with the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill could make the legal process look foolish. Tom Devine is a professor from the University of Edinburgh has described the bill as far too wide, saying that it could say that simple political statements were sectarian crimes.

Devine has commented, “The problem is people are not going to be sure what is a political belief and what is an offensive statement. If these bill is made law than it will bring this area of the law into disrepute. I also wonder why this Bill has been extended to such a great extent, so that it now covers many other things, rather than the sectarianism that it was originally made for.”

The potential law has been expanded to cover any offence that is driven by race, colour, sexual orientation or disability, among others. Devine has said, “There are important issues that need to be covered, but this law will just make everything far too ambiguous. We need to wait for there to be real evidence for making such a law, only that way will it be effective. There has only been one study conducted, back in 2004 and that was no where near deep enough.”

Cardinal Keith O’Brien  has said in the past that the reason for the religious violence in Scotland is because the state is against Catholics, Professor Devine has said the passing of this law will only confirm this belief. Research from the 2004 report suggested that Catholics were many times more likely to be subject to a sectarian attack. He also urged the Scottish government to wait for the Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland to complete a more conclusive study, which has been collecting data since 2003.

12 Spanish clubs want more TV cash

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12 Spanish clubs want more TV cash The chiefs of 12 Spanish clubs in the first division got together on Thursday to fight for more revenue from the TV rights system which they say greatly favours Real Madrid and Barcelona. The president of Sevilla, Jose Maria del Nido, led the charge against the two giants of the Spanish game, and invited all the clubs except Real and Barca to the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium.

The clubs’ plan is to ponder what they call the unfair, unequal and outrageous system that is currently in place to distribute financial rights from TV broadcasts, something that is unique in the leagues of Europe. Del Nido said in a statement that the current distribution favours Real and Barca year after year, to the detriment of the other teams. He adds that more money meant better players and had a knock on effect for endorsements and sponsors.

Barcelona and Real Madrid each receive about 140m euros a year from television rights, whilst the smaller clubs like Malaga, Real sociedad and Levante receive only 12m. Del Nido, renowned for his outspokenness, pulled no punches when he blasted the Spanish league as being the biggest pile of rubbish not just in Europe, but in the whole world. He added that it was a third world league where two clubs took everyone else’s money.

The other teams present at the meeting along with Sevilla were Atletico Madrid, Atletico Bilbao, Espanyol, Real Betis, Malaga, Granada, Racing Santander, Osasuna, Villareal, Real Zaragoza and Valencia. Four other clubs, Sporting Gijon, Getafe, Real Sociedad and Rayo Vallecano were not at the meeting but completely backed the campaign, according to the Sevilla statement that Del Nido released.

Italian Footballers paid much less than international stars in Serie A

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This week has seen the very unusual stop of Italian Serie A with Totti, Del Piero, Ibrahimovich, Milito & Co. striking for industrial relations issues linked to the agreement on the collective contract. The main cause sounds marginal to the public audience. However, professional footballers in Italy could have other reasons for striking, above all those holding an Italian passport.

According to a study from Antonio Giangreco and Johan Maes, researchers at IESEG School of Management, Italian players in the major “Serie A” league are significantly less paid than, alternatively, their European or non-European teammates. In fact, starting from secondary data of the four last football seasons, it was found that by average that Italian players earned about 1.00 million euros per year, which is .68 million euros less than other European players and .42 million euros less than non-European players contracted by an Italian football club.

This gap is particularly relevant for defenders and midfielders. In fact, in the season 2007-08, for example, Italian defenders earned “only” 0.53 million euros against 1.3 million made by the other European players and the 1.01 million euros of the non-European players. The statistics for defenders show a similar trend up to the last season with, however, a general decrease of between 10% and 15% for the non-Italian category. Wages for Italian midfielders present, over the same period, the same tendency with a gap even larger at the advantage of European midfielders: for example, 0.96 million euros for 2009-10, and of 0.5 million euros for 2010-11.

The segmentation of footballers according to their performance in four categories (lowest, second lowest, second best, best performers) confirmed the same conclusion for the first season. In fact, Italian players appear to be the least paid within the same category of performers if compared to other European players and non-European players contracted by an Italian football club. The discriminating effect against Italian players becomes milder to the extent that for the last season examined 2010-11, it is true only for top performers. A “cannoniere” is worth less than an international star.

Sir Alex ends his BBC boycott

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Sir Alex ends his BBC boycott The recent end to the boycott of the BBC by Sir Alex Ferguson has led many people to wonder how it actually begun in the first place. This is a common problem with long running arguments; we sometime forget how it all started.

The conversations between Sir Alex and Mark Thompson, BBC director general, will probably never be known as both parties have agreed to not comment on the talks. The only reason for Ferguson’s original boycott was the BBC airing the documentary ‘Fergie and Son,’ in 2004 – he never actually mentioned what it was in the documentary that affronted him and caused him to boycott the BBC.

The only time he spoke of the BBC since 2004 was in 2007, when he accused the broadcaster of being incredibly arrogant and saying they would never apologise for the content of the documentary. He said the film was very insulting to his son and damaged his honour. He also accused the BBC for making up the contents of the documentary.

The documentary focused on Ferguson’s son, Jason. Alex Millar directed the programme and went back to examine the revelations that the agents Jason had once worked for had got £25,000 for the transfer of Massimo Taibi, a goalkeeper. Other transfers were also examined in the film.

John Magnier and J P McManus, former friends of Ferguson’s had asked nearly one hundred questions about the football clubs financial propriety. These questions were leaked to the Daily Mail and United faced much greater scrutiny. As a response to this, the club decided to conduct a review of all its transfer dealings.

Before the airing of the documentary, the BBC released information about some of the findings that Millar had made. Unexpectedly, and in an attempt to pre-empt the revelations in the film, the club publicly announced that it was reviewing its transfers.