Drug code not fair on clubs: McGuire

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire says not just in sport, but across the wider community, the war against drugs is being lost. Picture: Wayne Ludbey. Source: Herald Sun

IT'S time to come clean. All sections of the community are fight losing battles in the war against drugs.

No matter how much education, how many threats are made, how many examples shown, people of all demographics take drugs. If you are into it they tell me it's as natural as having a beer. If you're not you wonder why people would ever do it?

Today's AFL drug summit has the chance to pull together what was a well-intentioned attempt to educate and protect the health of young men who play AFL and the realities that "familiarity breeds contempt".

There is no doubt that some players now hold the AFL drug code in contempt.

I hear all the stories, the rumours, about my players and players at every other club, and this summer has been the most prolific yet.

But as president of Collingwood, like my counterparts, I am powerless to sort out truth from fiction.

Believe it or not, the rights of the AFL clubs do not appear anywhere in the AFL drug policy.

Clubs have no say in the drug code until it is too late. It's not fair on the clubs, the supporters, the members, the sponsors and the players who are clean and do the right thing.

Everyone has had enough.

The erosion of the clubs' power and rights has been a gradual one over the life of the AFL Commission since it was established in 1985.

It might sound pedantic, but in recent years the AFL executive and the commission themselves have started to refer to the clubs as "stakeholders" rather than "shareholders", as if the clubs are some sponsor or auxiliary group.

It may be a subtle shift in the English language but it is seismic in its significance in the way the AFL looks at the clubs.

Let there be no mistake. The AFL has done as good a job as it can in trying to put in place a drug code that, with the support of the players, tackles the health issues of illicit drugs.

But it's not always just about the players.

It is time the clubs reasserted their role in running their players and protecting their clubs. That some players take drugs is not the AFL's fault or the clubs'.

The responsibility has to eventually start and end with the players.

Today's drug summit has the chance to get real.

The industry must build upon a foundation laid with all the good intent in the world. One that has been largely effective, but now needs refining.

Players with mental health issues need help and support. Those who are smart-arses need to be belted.

Together with the AFL we can come up with a more effective way of dealing with this problem. So maybe we have to be realistic and cop some bad headlines.

Yesterday I awoke, in the middle of a major sponsorship negotiation at Collingwood, to leaked news that Magpie players have been allegedly circumventing the spirit of the drug notification clause. Yet club officials are banned from knowing if any of their players have drug strikes.

When the Herald Sun runs a story alleging "four Collingwood players" are taking drugs the media comes chasing the officials of the Collingwood Football Club, not the AFL or the AFLPA.

Why ask me? I'm the last person to know.

The inference was the incidents happened at the end of the season, a time clubs have been saying for years can lead to "volcanic" activity as described by Collingwood CEO Gary Pert. A time when the AFL and the AFLPA legislate that clubs must stay away from its players.

It has nothing to do with Collingwood! Yet it has everything to do with Collingwood.

Clubs can no longer be left wondering about the health of their players and the reputation and security of the club when the data is available. In the end a well-run club will do the best thing for itself, the game and the players.

The AFL has a massive role to play overseeing the entire process.

A club has the right to declare to its members, supporters and sponsors that its mission statement is to be drug free.

It may not happen 100 per cent of the time, just like any family, workplace or school, but when we declare what we stand for in club land it would be nice to know we weren't making fools of ourselves with the unwitting complicity of the AFL.

Leaving aside the social issues of drugs in our society, a point I first raised with the AFL Commission in 1998 and reiterated on the back page of this paper in 2005, these drugs remain illegal.

Playing football is not compulsory. If you want to do drugs, don't play football.

These are grown men and no matter their background or circumstances players must know that drug taking is not accepted in the AFL.

At the moment players prepared to play fast and loose with their own health are also doing so with the reputation of an entire football club, even the code and even worse, their teammates who do the right thing.

Players' health and wellbeing is one thing, the reputation of the game and the clubs is just as important.

Players may not realise how close they are to organised crime when they become entangled with drugs and gambling, until it is too late.

Sensible tightening of the rules and its many loopholes is required today. It's far more than just a health issue.

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