Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 40-59)

30 MARCH 2004

MS MICHELE VERROKEN

  Q40 Alan Keen: Looking at drug taking overall, if you look at what it would cost government, for instance, to monitor and stop the pros from benefiting and therefore damaging themselves and as well as destroying their competition—you say that costs a lot of money, but if you take what drug-taking costs us, forgetting about athletes, what drug-taking costs us as a nation, because it is being taken for pleasure, so-called pleasure—then the tiny part you are talking about on international sport would be nothing in the overall cost; and there is tremendous saving to be got from educating people in drugs. Would that be the best way to go, to say we want one drug agency which primarily is deterring children from getting into it and, just as a minor part of that, they do the checking of the athletes?[1]

  Ms Verroken: It is really more in a network of agencies and really to try and encourage a situation where people do not have to reinvent the wheel. Once we moved individual sports from having to provide somebody to do the sample collection, to carry out the initial testing, the standards went up and the level of confidence of the athletes went up tremendously, but it really is taking the next step and looking at the opportunity to network the education, the information. In many respects it does not always have to be government who pays for this. The very fact that we raise money through the Lottery, part of that should perhaps be reinvested back into the health and safety system of sport and any sports sponsorship, the tax levy that there is ought to be reinvested in the health and safety system. In the Tour de France the concerns really were very much by the sponsors for the potential damage that it might do, and yet some of the sponsors were very much part of the campaign to keep the testing out of the Tour de France. So I think there are opportunities there for wider investment and wider networking of information.

  Q41 Mr Flook: Amongst athletes or sportsmen and women is it that they do not do this because it is not fair or because of the chances of being caught? Where is the balance line? Does that vary from different sports?

  Ms Verroken: It varies from different sports, I would say, and trying to set an optimum testing programme for a sport in the public sector is very, very difficult, because how much testing is enough? The athletes have to help us on how much makes them feel it would be a deterrent, and the athletes were always the best people to tell us who we should have been testing and we tried to make them very much part of the selection process.

  Q42 Mr Flook: How do they do that? Is it anonymous notes or telephone calls?

  Ms Verroken: Yes, a number of athletes would actually put forward names, but there are always the athletes who, when the sampling officer would arrive at their house, say, "Why are you here for me again. You need to be at somebody else's house", and put forward a name at that point; but we did have a number of athletes put forward names. It is about how you create the confidence of that particular sort of group, and it really has to be by creating what would be the maximum deterrent. If we always say we are going to test two players from each side in a football match, then the chances of being tested are much reduced, but we have achieved a situation with the Football Association where we had the opportunity to vary that number. We implemented that in cricket, where sometimes we would turn up and we would test 24 players, because obviously we would want to make sure that we have the twelfth man, all 24 players, or sometimes we would turn up and we would test two from each side. To keep that variation increases the deterrent. Once you know that, for the majority of tests in competitions, it is going to be first, second and third places, and you are only looking to achieve a personal best (and that is what is going to qualify you for your lottery award), that is what you—.

  Q43 Mr Flook: What is the cost per sample?

  Ms Verroken: Unfortunately the UK is probably the most expensive place in the world, because the cost of analysis here is quite expensive. So it really is more in the region of about £300.

  Q44 Mr Flook: Per test?

  Ms Verroken: Per test.

  Q45 Mr Flook: Because?

  Ms Verroken: That sample is analysed through quite a rigorous process, it is not simply a cheap and quick dipstick test unfortunately which is where employee screening can sometimes have advantages because a lot of the time they are looking for a simple presence. With sports drug testing we actually have to identify the metabolites of the prohibited substance in the athlete's urine to be absolutely sure it is there.

  Q46 Mr Flook: I can see that there is a very, very strong argument for an independent set up, and it is very difficult to argue for sports self-regulation and self-rule for the obvious reason that things get lost, but that is a huge cost. You mentioned the American system which is funded by the American Olympic Association and—

  Ms Verroken: And government.

  Q47 Mr Flook: And government?

  Ms Verroken: Yes.

  Q48 Mr Flook: Currently the £300 per test here is funded by?

  Ms Verroken: That is where I would actually perhaps point out a slight discrepancy in the PMP report. The drug-testing programme is not funded 100% by government. There are a number of sports that do invest in their own testing programmes. The Football Association, for example, was investing in a further 1,200 tests more than the 250 tests that UK Sport were providing. So there is a significant investment going on by a number of sports. Rugby union are investing in their testing programme, so is cricket. The reason why they are investing is that the public purse could not meet the number of tests that the sport felt should be undertaken in order to create the maximum deterrent, whereas with a sport like track and field athletics, that is 100% government funded. So the majority of the Olympic sports find themselves government funded.

  Q49 Mr Flook: Finally, are you interested, and if you are why, in testing for, say, cannabis or heroin or cocaine abuse amongst sports people?

  Ms Verroken: I would not put all those drugs together. We—UK Sport, supported by responses to the consultation on the Code—did put forward quite a strong argument for cannabis not being included in the list of prohibited substances but, being a monitoring substance, as it is well-known that it is a gateway drug to other drugs. It also is the drug that stays longest in the body and therefore could have more effect on performance and cause the individual concerned to think, "I need steroids now to be able to deliver my performance". Obviously it is still a prohibited substance in society. It does not provide a very good role model. Unfortunately, we could not persuade the World Anti-Doping Agency that cannabis should be taken off the prohibited list and kept simply as a monitoring substance. We have that situation presently with alcohol in football. It is monitored and if the individual player seems continually to have a substantial level of alcohol, of course, the club doctor can intervene, with more concern for the player's health than looking at this as a disciplinary matter, although it might ultimately become a disciplinary matter if they are not going to look at the encouragement to get some advice, assessment and rehabilitation if necessary.

  Q50 Mr Flook: One final question. If Rio Ferdinand, who came up in conversation earlier, makes an assumption that he did not want to be tested, was that, do you think, because of abuse of Class A drugs or because he was on some sort of steroid?

  Ms Verroken: It is always difficult to understand motivation for anybody, and the Rio Ferdinand case is very interesting in that we have not had a case like it in other sports. I would raise that with you as something you should be asking, why it has not happened in other sports, or is it that the other sports are not defining a doping offence in that same way? Why did Rio not turn up for his test? Did he simply forget? Was he taking a substance that he did not particularly want to declare because he was concerned that it might become evident that he was under treatment for a medical condition that he would prefer to keep confidential? Or was he taking cocaine, in which case cocaine would be out of the body in 48 hours and that is why he came back after 48 hours? There are all sorts of answers to that question, and I really do not have them.

  Q51 Mr Flook: Let me put it another way round. Do footballers take performance enhancing drugs in the way that Ben Johnson did to run 100 metres?

  Ms Verroken: We have not seen the evidence that steroids have been used in football in the way that they were or have been used and are being used in sports like track and field athletics or weight-lifting, perhaps sports you would associate more with strength and stamina than football. Perhaps there is an arrogance amongst footballers that they rely on their skill, their ability rather than needing performance-enhancing drugs. I do not know, but certainly that is now not the case, as we have seen other support programmes coming in. Arsene Wenger was one of the very first to bring in nutrition programmes for footballers.

  Q52 Ms Shipley: Can I take you back to when you were talking about local authorities and trying to create drug-free sports facilities and get them to declare that they are drug-free. It is a bit of a shock that they are not, but, having listened to you for the last hour, I can see the complexity of it. I would like you to talk through what could be done at local level, because I have listed what is in my constituency and I have got a running club, a tennis club, a rugby club, a golf club, a football club, a cricket club, a local sports and swimming centre, four private health clubs and a riding stables just 100 yards away. So there is the full range. How would a local authority go about suggesting to all of these people that they should be drugs free in the range of drugs? We are not talking cannabis and cocaine here in the way you are talking about it. How do local authorities set about it?

  Ms Verroken: I think you can embrace the full range of drugs because obviously somebody who smokes cannabis—

  Q53 Ms Shipley: The straightforward illegal ones?

  Ms Verroken: Yes.

  Q54 Ms Shipley: But that is not what we are really talking about here. It is all the enhancing ones which are legal, but not if you are competing, and so on and so forth?

  Ms Verroken: It is really needing to have a multi-pronged attack on this one, not only to make it clear that the supply, the consumption, of drugs on the premises would not be acceptable and, if found, would be a reason for terminating somebody's membership, it is also looking very carefully at the employees of those establishments—because sometimes they can actually be the suppliers of the substances—but also being able to promote the right information, the right kind of information, to support people to achieve good performances without the use of drugs.

  Q55 Ms Shipley: But on the first two criteria, say an employee supplying drugs—and I do not want to talk about the illegal ones because clearly they are illegal and they should not be there anyway and it is a straightforward policing job—those things where they are supplements, they are enhancements, they are not strictly illegal but you and I would think that they are incredibly bad practice and should not be there and we do not want to see them there, how can the local authorities possibly have any impact on that?

  Ms Verroken: Obviously sometimes the local authorities accept the franchises that will come in and sell those supplements on the premises.

  Q56 Ms Shipley: Do they?

  Ms Verroken: So why not use the sports centres as the base for a qualified sports nutritionist who can actually look at the wider nutritional needs of individuals so that they actually look at a balanced diet. Most of the sports nutritionists I have spoken to have said that athletes would not need supplements if they had the right diets.

  Q57 Ms Shipley: That works well for, off my long list, one, the local sports centres and swimming pools, but all the others I listed that does not work for, so what could be done for all of those that are in effect private?

  Ms Verroken: That is the difficultly. I am always quite amazed by the Environmental Health Act that requires massage parlours to be regulated but not private gymnasiums where you ought to be concerned about health and safety, whether or not they have actually checked the equipment is properly connected to the wall or floor or whatever and also that the individuals there are trained and promoting the right kind of message for individuals. It is a bit like saying that your best bar lady is the one who persuades you to get drunk. That is why we have to make sure we have got the right—

  Q58 Ms Shipley: Of my long and varied list—golf clubs, riding clubs—you are suggesting that maybe it should be under licence?

  Ms Verroken: Whether it is by licensing or whether it is by self-regulation. There was a scheme of self-regulation that we did start in Darlington amongst the private gyms and they were promoting themselves as open to integrity checks by others on the standards that they had set for themselves.

  Q59 Ms Shipley: Did that work for as long as the particular person was managing it for that particular time and was interested and then it did not work again?

  Ms Verroken: Yes.


1   Note by witness: In relation to education, I do agree that we need one agency for anti-doping that works through other potentially influencing bodies/agencies, e.g. the education system. Back


 
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