Pound is relentless in pursuit of dopers

IT was a genuine joy to spend 45 minutes or so in the company of a sporting legend last week. A guy who has done more than many individual superstars to further the cause of global games. Dick Pound, the founding president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, was at the University of Stirling to talk to coaches and young athletes about the perils of performanceenhancing substances. He flat-out insisted that athletes know — don’t suspect, but know — when they are being cheated by a rival taking more than just a protein shake. And, although his defiance may have become a necessary defence mechanism given the scale of the problem, the affable Canadian (pictured) seems genuinely certain the dopers will always get caught out. Arguing that nobody can source, obtain and accurately ingest the banned substances all on their own, he says this means someone else always knows about it. ‘And sooner or later, they’re going to rat you out,’ he added. ‘It can be because you didn’t renew their contract, they didn’t get a bonus, you were rude to them at a party… there’s always something.’ That is heartening, the thought that there can never be honour among drugs cheats. If only all sports had proper systems in place to help the whistleblowers — or even to carry out widespread testing. Speaking before the weekend revelations about Liverpool defender Mamadou Sakho, Pound said football was guilty of ‘a huge amount of self-denial’ when it came to accepting it might have a problem. The theory seems to be that, because tactics, selection etc can have such a bearing on the outcome, very little would be gained by putting the entire team on a doping programme. Given the importance placed on how much ground modern footballers cover, isn’t that a little out of date and out of touch?