Called for in steroid debate
with sport across the country is just a ridiculous situation. We have to be realistic,’’ Nichol says.
‘‘Sure, there were some at a national and international level that stuffed up and needed to be dealt with on their merits, but the vast majority of them, they’re just clogging up the system for no real purpose.
‘‘There was a different way to deal with it, in our view. We believe the code had enough flexibility in it to go to WADA and say ‘look, this is the situation we have, for those being non-national and noninternational athletes this is how we’re proposing to deal with it; for those being elite athletes, this is how we’re proposing to deal with them’.’’
DFSNZ chief executive Nick Paterson makes no apologies for the thoroughness of the investigation.
He says the agency’s remit is to ensure all levels of New Zealand sport is conducted ‘‘clean’’ and where they see evidence of an anti-doping rule violation they have an obligation to vigorously pursue it.
But he does not agree with critics who suggest the clenbuterol investigation has overwhelmingly caught amateur and club level athletes, whose continued participation in sport is of little consequence.
Of the 22 cases that have been resolved by the judicial bodies to date, Paterson estimates just four of those can be described as recreational athletes.
‘‘There’s no proper definition of ‘recreational’, so it is a bit of a grey area, but per my definition you’ve got 18 that would not be termed recreational, and four that would,’’ he says.
‘‘We’ve got some decent level people – provincial, national and international representatives in there. There’s not as many rec players as we initially anticipated.’’
Most athletes caught in the clenbuterol investigation are thought to be rugby players. Among the more prominent names to be successfully prosecuted were one-test Black Fern Zoey Berry, former Waikato representative Glen Robertson, and Manawatu club player Rhys Pedersen, who played one match for the Turbos in 2014.
Paterson says he would like to have a different range of sanctions to deal with the small majority of individuals he classifies as club athletes, but the WADA code does not allow him the scope to do so.
‘‘I would love to have a regime where if we had a recreational athlete – someone who turns up at the weekend to play footy for their local club – if they are found to have breached the rules and taken a prohibited substance, I would like a system where I could simply write them a stern reprimand letter and mandate that they must do online anti-doping training, which we have on the website ready to go,’’ he says.
‘‘That’s where we’d like to get to, but whether that’s possible, whether that’s where we end up
‘‘To apply the full force of the code to everyone who is involved with sport across the country is just a ridiculous situation.’’ NZ Rugby Players’ Association boss Rob Nichol
ultimately lies with WADA.’’
Howman, however, believes there is a way of sanctioning or reprimanding the athletes without tying up the resources of the Sports Tribunal and NZ Rugby Judiciary.
‘‘We should not be spending resource on club athletes, in terms of a sanctioning process. You could have a process – they do this in some other countries – where effectively they offer a plea bargain. You get the person in to say ‘look, we think you’ve done this. If you were to admit to this, then we would be recommending a warning, or a two-week suspension or whatever’ that can cut the whole thing down and save a lot of resource,’’ says Howman.
Nichol is also in favour of a more informal approach to dealing with recreational athletes.
‘‘The reality is, yes it is not good for their health. It is an unbelievably stupid thing to do, and would we want to know about it? Yes, because we would be telling them ‘you’re a bloody idiot, you’re endangering your health, and it ain’t going to do much for you anyway’,’’ says Nichol.
‘‘The people who are buying through that website, the nonelites anyway, you get in touch with them and explain to them the health situation, the risks they’re taking, make them do mandatory education, all of that. But don’t throw them out of sport for two to four years. Holy hell. For some of those people sport may be what is keeping them together.’’