City ‘tarnished’ by drug rule oversight
CITY are planning to appoint someone to monitor the whereabouts of players in order to avoid any more breaches of antidoping rules, the club’s doctor has revealed.
The Blues were fined £35,000 in January for breaking rules which state clubs must provide the FA with information about training sessions and players’ addresses so doping officers can find them for no-notice tests.
If clubs fail to provide this information – or testers are unable to find the players – three times in a rolling 12-month period, they are deemed to have breached the rule.
City received three strikes in the space of five months in 2016, with the final breach coming three weeks after the FA sent a written warning, something the club’s doctor Matthew Brown admitted had brought the club’s image into ‘disrepute.’
Speaking at the Soccerex Convention in Manchester, Dr Brown said the whereabouts system was ‘difficult’ to manage for team sports and described the breaches as ‘admin errors.’
Brown took responsibility for the mistakes and said City, like most other Premier League sides, were in the process of creating a ‘whereabouts administrator’ role to avoid any further issues.
“Years ago, it was up to the players, but the players would forget to (update their online whereabouts form) and the players would get sanctions,” he said.
“And if you get enough sanctions then that means a ban. Obviously, (the players) are assets for the club, so we don’t want that to happen. The key thing is the number of players involved. We’re not just talking 25 first-team players – we’re talking about the reserves, all the way down to the under-18s.
“And we need to update the FA if an under-18 player happens to go and train with the first team that day. If we don’t update that within a certain time-frame that morning, then that is potentially a strike.
“We’re obviously not happy (about the sanction) as a club because it does bring our badge into disrepute but these have been admin errors and there have been no specific anti-doping offences.”
City’s three strikes in 2016 came when manager Pep Guardiola failed to inform the FA of an extra training session in July, a first-team player missed a test in September because he had not updated his address, and six reserve players missed tests in December because they had been given the day off at late notice.