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.”