Examination of Witnesses (Questions 296-299)
4 MAY 2004
Mr Trevor Brooking, and Mr Nic Coward
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much
for attending this morning. We are approaching the finale of this
inquiry and who better to provide a grand finale than The Football
Association and who better than Derek Wyatt to start the questioning.
Q296 Derek Wyatt: Thank you, Chairman.
Good morning, gentlemen. I wonder if you could tell us how many
tests are taken across football in an ordinary year for drug taking.
Mr Coward: Across English football
at the moment we receive 250 public interest tests from UK Sport.
Chairman: May I interrupt for the moment
to clarify this for me. When Derek is asking about tests, he is
asking about tests on suspicion or routine tests?
Q297 Derek Wyatt: Routine. Unannounced.
Mr Coward: Routine, random, unannounced
tests, both at games and at training sessions. There are 250 carried
out by UK Sport subject to the public interest programme which
you have heard about and we purchase a further 1,000 tests. That
means we are about one-fifth of the total UK Sport programme and
the largest sport programme in the UK. We carry out those tests
across a whole range of matches and training sessions in the English
domestic system. I should also add, of course, that we are very
lucky in England to have many of the world's leading players playing
in our top league; those players, when they are on international
duty, are tested by FIFA through the international programme.
Success in European club competition brings with it further testing
of our leading club players by UEFA at UEFA club matches, and
also, at the European Championships. As an example, UEFA will
be carrying out its own testing programme for this Summer's Euro
2004 tournament.
Q298 Derek Wyatt: In the 1,000 that you
pay for, as it were, so that you just want to make sure things
are working, do you test for social drugs, like marijuana and
cocaine?
Mr Coward: Yes, we do. The vast
majority of those tests are for all prohibited substances. We
purchase an additional number of tests purely for social drugs
which reflects the fact that in English football we are confident
and the evidence shows that we do not have a performance enhancing
drug cheat culture. From almost 8,000 tests we have had one positive
find for a performance enhancing substance. One of the debates
we are going through at the moment, which I think you have had
highlighted, is the debate promoted by WADA and what they think
about the out-of-competition prohibited substance list. The out-of-competition
list, as they have defined it, will I think going forward not
include certain social drugs. Narcotics and cannabinoids will
not be part of the out-of-competition test. That perhaps does
not affect us, because, as I want to make clear, we have a system
where "out-of-competition" means training ground tests,
so we do not really have an out-of-competition period as other
sports would define it, such as athletics and swimming, where
athletes may be away from the country for six/nine months. We
actually carry out a programme where we test for all drugs on
the list throughout the entire period of our testing programme.
Q299 Chairman: Could I have another clarification.
When you are talking about testing for drugs, one can, I suppose,
define drugs into three categories: (i) drugs which are illegal
and performance enhancing, (ii) drugs which are legal, say, on
prescription that could be performance enhancing, and (iii) drugs
which are legal and while they might enhance performance are taken
on a doctor's prescription for a medical condition. Could you
clarify how you distinguish between those three?
Mr Coward: Yes. Perhaps I should
clarify by saying we ourselves do not make such distinctions:
we adopt what is provided to us by FIFA, the international governing
body, who themselves are going through a process of adopting the
new WADA Code together with WADA. One of our issues at the moment
is we are still waiting for the new FIFA system to be delivered
to us, which is the system we shall be running in English football
on behalf of FIFA. The answer to your question is that we will
be testing the list which WADA and FIFA, the Olympic movement
and football, agree is the right list. The distinctions you draw
within that list may well be valid. In many senses we would not
go behind the reasoning because we rely on those experts within
FIFA and WADA to tell us what the lists are. I would re-emphasise
that what we are dealing with in English football is not an issue
as we see it at the moment of drug cheats—performance enhancing
substances—whether they be accidental or deliberate or prescription
or otherwise, as you describe it. That is the evidence of one
in 8,000 speaking. We do have a comprehensive education programme
that we run together with other agencies, UK Sport, the PFA, the
professional clubs, others, to make sure our players understand
not only what they should be doing and not doing in the area of
performance enhancing substances, but generally in their lives
and the ill effects to themselves and others of social drugs use.
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