Warner: AFL’s illicit drugs policy exposes players, competition to criminal corruption

Patrick Dangerfield says the critics of the AFL’s illicit drugs policy are dinosaurs, yet one reality seems lost on its defenders, how the policy exposes the AFL to corruption, writes Michael Warner.

Patrick Dangerfield says critics of the AFL’s illicit drugs policy are “dinosaurs” who “live under a rock”.

Drug use is one of the “realities of modern society, whether or not you agree with it”, the Geelong champion and AFL Players’ Association president says.

“We get it doesn’t make it okay, but we also have to live in the land that is reality,” he told the ABC on Monday.

But there’s another reality that seems lost on Dangerfield and supporters of the league’s farcical three-strikes policy – criminals who prey on sports stars to get inside information.

It was David Sharpe, the head of Sports Integrity Australia, who once declared that footballers taking cocaine, ice and ecstasy were ­vulnerable to bikies and organised criminals who either sold them the drugs, or saw them taking them.

Dangerfield was critical of those who blasted the AFL’s illicit drugs policy. (Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Once compromised, Sharpe said, players could be threatened to provide information on game plans, injuries or line-ups, to give criminals an advantage in the betting world.

In worst-case scenarios they could be pressured to help fix an outcome, he said.

“It’s definitely a threat. We are talking about criminals here. People who sell drugs like cocaine are not good people,” Sharpe told this masthead in 2019.

As a former Australian Federal Police officer who has pursued drug cartels in Mexico, Colombia and Vietnam, he would know.

Five years on, it’s Sharpe who is assessing a series of documents handed over by federal MP Andrew Wilkie relating to alleged rampant drug use at the Melbourne Football Club and other clubs.

Among them, is former club doctor Zeeshan Arain’s revelations about “off the books” illicit drug tests being conducted on players in the days leading up to games to ensure they are not caught out by SIA testers on match day.

About a third of Melbourne’s playing group were “frequent” users of illicit drugs, Dr Arain claimed in a statement given to Mr Wilkie, while another third used drugs “occasionally”.

Demons player Joel Smith is already known to SIA. His phone was seized last year after testing positive to cocaine on match day.

Head of Sports Integrity Australia David Sharpe. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Already they have accused him of alleged trafficking to teammates – but what other clues on his phone may help lead SIA investigators to drug distributors or criminals higher up the food chain?

The glaring problem with the AFL’s illicit drugs policy is that it caters for repeated use of illegal substances without penalty.

Keep using drugs and playing matches until our “medical model” cures you, is the message.

But what happens in the meantime?

At what point does individual player welfare give way to the greater good?

It only takes one drug-addled player to compromise the integrity of the game.

And by going soft on footballers who take drugs the AFL has opened up the door to criminal infiltration and exposed its competition to corruption.

Players are supposedly elite professionals and role models, so surely it’s not too much to expect them to be able to stay off the illegal drug cocaine – just like the vast majority of the general population does – for 30 weeks of the year.

It remains to be seen how Sharpe will respond to the Wilkie revelations and it’s the crooks who will be hoping he does nothing.

Originally published as Warner: AFL’s illicit drugs policy exposes players, competition to criminal corruption