Clear rules on doping in sport can only benefit fans
The lack of drug testing in Scottish football means there are few deterrents, writes Paul Dimeo
There is an alarming lack of drugs testing in Scottish football. Twenty tests were carried out in the first three months of 2016, but none since. This means there are few deterrents to taking performance-enhancing drugs in the Scottish game.
But this is not just a problem for Scottish football – there are fundamental flaws in anti-doping procedures globally.
Part of the problem is that there are no clear rules. If the Scottish Football Association (SFA) isn’t doing any testing, there is no formal policy in place to push forward sanctions to get testing underway by a set deadline.
There are ‘model’ guidelines in place, but these are vague and by definition, difficult to enforce. This gives out mixed messages to the SFA about what is expected.
If the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) got involved in sanctioning drug testing among Scottish footballers, they would do this through the National Anti-doping Organisation which overlooks anti-doping in all sport across the UK, or through FIFA, who are responsible for football internationally.
That means drugs testing would have to be failing across the whole of British sport, or in the game of football across the world, before any action would be taken against the SFA.
The other issue is that WADA does not distinguish between different anti-doping violations and relative punishments. You won’t get a slap on the wrists, or an almighty fine, depending on the scale of your misdemeanour – it’s all or nothing.
Governing bodies may impose a fine, like the £35,000 penalty handed out to Manchester City by the FA for failing to inform authorities of the location of its drug testing. Yet there is no punishment in Scotland for not testing.
WADA’S rules focus on compliance at a higher level: the rare punishment for non-compliance is exclusion from major international events, but that is a last resort.
There is also no evaluation process for the level of testing expected of a sport, either by making comparisons with other sports, or creating a benchmark. It’s hard to assess if the SFA are below any specific threshold. There’s no external scrutiny or independent auditing body to ensure the rules are being followed or being taken in the spirit they are meant to be. Organisations with vested interests in results are left in charge of anti-doping, opening up the prospect of corruption – like we saw in Russia.
This confusing and fractured system undermines the fight against doping in sport and leaves Scottish football unregulated. The principle that everyone in sport should be working together to help prevent doping becomes very difficult to uphold.
Pockets of non-testing in sport can exist without any response – and that’s exactly what’s happening in Scottish football. We should know with more certainty when we are watching the sport that no players have an unfair advantage or are taking something that could be harmful to their health. But if anti-doping is based on a global policy, that has local differences, then it is destined to fail. Paul Dimeo is senior lecturer in Sports Policy at the University of Stirling.