‘Negligent’ ASADA cops a jab

Brownlow medallist Gerard Healy is extremely frustrated that Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority officials could potentially derail the AFL season this year.

It was revealed by The Age on Thursday that ASADA testers would not need to be tested for COVID-19 before conducting tests on AFL players, raising the prospect a tester could bring the virus into the quarantine hubs.

“The longer we are forced to live with the coronavirus, both within the more restricted world of sport and in the general society, the more we are subjected to some bizarrely hypocritical nonsense from governments at all levels,” Healy told 3AW Sportsday.

“In the world of sport there is nothing, and I repeat nothing, more bizarre and downright negligent from a government authority than the behaviour of ASADA.

“The AFL are spending millions of dollars complying with the government’s chief health officer demands to create isolation hubs to protect players from possible infection.

“Players themselves have accepted onerous living conditions to get the game under way, but at the same time the government body is sending ... operatives into the hubs to test players for drugs, but they themselves haven’t been tested for coronavirus.

“It seems bizarre ... in trying to keep the game drug-free, they could infect players in the hub and seriously disrupt the season.

“Ironically, the government body that exists to keep the sport clean, could in fact bring it down with its own lack of coronavirus hygiene.”

The AFL is unable to prevent testers from entering clubs and will also not be able to force testers to undertake a COVID-19 test.