Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
4 MAY 2004
Mr Trevor Brooking, and Mr Nic Coward
Q300 Chairman: But you are there to keep
sport clean; you are not there to enforce criminal law.
Mr Coward: That is correct. I
think it has been said in other evidence that we have a code of
rules. A breach of those rules is what we deal with under the
contract between ourselves and everyone else in the game. That
is our function.
Q301 Derek Wyatt: Over ten years, if
there are 10,000 and more tests, how many players have not taken
it? How many players have refused to take a urine sample?
Mr Coward: In that period of ten
years, three out of 8,000, each unique in their own way. Each
case, as we would say generally in this whole debate, has to be
judged on its own merits. Each case has its own facts, but we
have had three cases where a player, having been notified, has
failed to attend.
Q302 Derek Wyatt: What was the outcome
for those three? What were the fines?
Mr Coward: The three cases, as
I say, are all different. One was a deliberate avoidance, of leaping
through a window having been notified. That player was already
subject to an ongoing process. That leads me into an important
area, which I can perhaps pick up now. That led to a finding that
there was a player with an addiction and he was able to be subjected
to a rehabilitation and counselling process, which took upwards
of a year. At the conclusion of that, the commission ordered that
he may be admitted back into the game, to complete his rehabilitation.
I should just say that UEFA see that approach as best practice,
to seek to get a player back on his feet, and it has been described
to you as "enlightened" in another submission. The second
case is where a player was notified, and said went to the Club
doctor "I understand I have been notified but for the following
pressing reasons may I please go elsewhere and then come back?"
which the doctor accepted. The player then, for reasons outside
his control, was not able to get back in time. He was charged
and dealt with by a commission and received a very low sentence
for what on the evidence the Commission found was a technical
breach, a breach which the commission accepted was outside his
control. The final one is the one of which everyone in this room
will be aware, the case relating to Mr Ferdinand which has been
well reported. The decision of the appeal board was that Mr Ferdinand
did not attend a test, which attracted an eight-month suspension.
Q303 Derek Wyatt: Under the WADA Code
and the FIFA agreement of the WADA Code, is it likely that not
only the players will be held responsible but so will the clubs?
Do you support that?
Mr Coward: I think any professional
club very well knows its responsibilities in this area. When the
testing officers from UK Sport and the FA arrive, this is a significant
issue for clubs to deal with. Clubs have different ways of dealing
with it, and one of the issues at which we have been looking together
with Lord Coe and others in our current review process, is what
best practice we can put out to clubs to make sure that when those
testing officers do arrive, they know exactly what to do. I should
say, however, that in UK Sport we have had, for the ten years
of this process, an excellent partner who is IOC accredited, now
WADA accredited, who is ISO accredited and whose processes we
fully believe in and support, and we look to them, as you would
expect, for help, guidance and assistance. Particularly on arrival
at a ground, either after a match or at a training session, it
is very much for the UK Sport officials to carry out the process
which is so tried and tested in football and all other sports
they deal with: athletics, swimming, rugby football league.
Q304 Derek Wyatt: Just one issue in that,
you are supposed to look after the game, as it were, and in a
sense the clubs look after the players, but if you are also judge
and jury does that make it more complicated? In previous evidence
we had an athlete in front of us who said it was very difficult
because he was, as it were, being told off by the British Athletics
at the same time as being counselled by the British Athletics
and he did not think that was reasonable. Where is the FA on that
sort of situation?
Mr Coward: I have seen your questioning
of others relating to the various separation of roles, as we see
it, and the clarity of roles in the entire doping and disciplinary
process. I read Mr Richardson's evidence and it struck me that
in football we do not have the issues to which he referred, because
we have a very supportive Professional Footballers' Association
who act very much as the body who do assist the players through
this process. They act for the player. I think that is something
which both swimming and athletics have suggested to you is a weakness
in their system, which they would like to address in some way
or another. We have an independent drug testing programme: the
collection process is carried out for us by UK Sport, and the
analysis is carried out by Kings College, from whom you have received
evidence and in whom we have great faith, I should say, Professor
Cowan and his team have been part of our programme for many years
as well. All results are reported up to us, The Football Association,
and our compliance team, as they do with any other disciplinary
case, whether it be child protection or an on-field matter, then
progress that case. If they feel there is a case to answer, and
in a case of a positive find there always will be, that will go
before a Commission. Those Commission members will make an initial
decision and that will then go off, if the player decides, to
an Appeal Board. One of the features I would like to highlight
to you is that we have Appeal Boards which are chaired by an individual
appointed by the Sports Dispute Resolution Panel. All our Appeal
Boards, under a standing agreement between ourselves and the SDRP,
on an annual basis, are appointed by that body. A point worth
referring to is that for the next season two Appeal Board panel
members for all our cases will be appointed by the SDRP. I should
say that in all of this, football's process, who is in it, how
it is set out, is very similar to that adopted in rugby union.
Cricket, tennis, rugby, golf and ourselves have a very similar
view in this area. I have seen that swimming and athletics—and
I know this from speaking to the two Davids over many years—have
a different view, but there are many sports that do not share
their view. I am sympathetic of their reasons. David Moorcroft
obviously mentions seeking to avoid liability, which is something
I respect and I understand completely, and you will see that in
our submission we have made a few pointers in that area. I understand
David Sparkes' issue with the swimmers, that he wants to be the
person who helps the swimmer through the process. We do not share
that view. We are in a position where perhaps we are lucky that
we do not have to share that view. We have tried and tested processes.
As Lord Coe is saying, "Do not tinker with these processes
because these processes are best practice, they have served you
well." When I read a quote from Michele Verroken in a recent
newspaper article and also the quote from Richard Callicott, the
former Chief Executive of UK Sport, they are both saying that
The FA, football, has the best programme in this area in sport
in the UK and we are very proud of that.
Derek Wyatt: Thank you, Chairman.
Q305 Chris Bryant: Mr Brooking, do you
think it is fair that footballers are considered to be role models
and have to live as role models and are subject to the censure
of the press on a weekly basis?
Mr Brooking: When you say is it
fair, it is a fact of life that football has a massive high profile
sport in this country, it is our national game, and so it will
receive wide coverage. Unfortunately with that coverage you will
also get predominantly the controversial issues. Certainly, I
am lucky; I am involved in our football development part of the
game where I see many excellent role models, which is the large
majority of the professional footballers in this country. Unfortunately,
it is a fact of life that this will not get the same coverage
but we have to convey that because I do believe it really is a
great platform to help the social agenda in this country. We do
a lot of work with organisations such as Football Foundation and
Positive Futures, working with disadvantaged youngsters who have
problems with crime, drugs and vandalism, working with the police
and using football as a distraction because they have never really
had the opportunity to get involved in sport or football.
Q306 Chris Bryant: When somebody enters
the big league as a footballer and suddenly—relatively suddenly
because it will not take more than two or three years for it to
happen—they have large amounts of money, it is almost like
winning the lottery in a way. They may have a personal driver,
they may have all sorts of people advising them on finance and
stuff, but do they get enough support to be able to cope with
the phenomenal pressures?
Mr Brooking: Football has worked
very hard over the last few years, particularly Premiership clubs,
because that is where a lot of the attention is focused and you
can get youngsters 17, 18, 19 suddenly thrown in to the media's
attention. Every club has an education programme, and an Education
Officer. All the 16 to 19 year old youngsters who are taken on
by the clubs and also through the academy system, go through an
educational process on all the pitfalls and distractions away
from the game. Obviously you have to be dedicated and reasonably
fit to achieve the levels at which you are being asked to play
so the areas of drinking, drugs and nutrition are all areas to
cover. Also they are encouraged to follow academic subjects as
well, because another fact of life is that between the 16 to 19
age group over 90% of those youngsters will not stay in the professional
game long term. There is a big drop-out rate and we want to make
sure those youngsters are not adversely affected and are not then
tempted by other distractions because they look on themselves
as a failure. So there is a big education process that goes on
and I think we have made large strides in that area.
Q307 Chris Bryant: So when you read the
newspapers, and football and The FA must be one of the most regularly
covered subjects, both the front half of newspapers as well as
the back half of the newspapers, and you see the caricature of
footballers as all taking drugs, all having emotional problems,
all living the wild life, does that upset you, does it disturb
you, or do you just get philosophical about it?
Mr Brooking: I think it is frustrating.
I think, again, we try to emphasise to everyone that it is a very
small percentage of players that are involved. If you plucked
any profession in the country, particularly those with high earnings,
there would be a very small percentage that possibly would have
those similar problems but of course it is not publicised in the
papers because they are different professions to football. Having
said that, I think all clubs, and certainly The FA as the governing
body, try to emphasise to players, particularly when they are
getting to first team level and then into the international arena,
to accept their responsibility: that they do have an image. Lots
of youngsters will look up to them and they have to take that
responsibility seriously. A lot of clubs get frustrated as well
when they are let down, but again we all emphasise this is a very
small percentage and there is a variety of football and community
schemes where lots of players are contributing enormously to a
whole range of social agendas in the local community, which do
not get coverage.
Q308 Chairman: It is not quite as simple
as that, is it? The nature of being a leading footballer has been
transformed in recent years. It has been transformed because of
the huge amounts of money that have gone into football, particularly
the Premier League, because of television rights. So that the
financial aspect of football has changed the nature of being a
leading footballer, yet at the same time young footballers have
got this one remarkable skill that makes them prodigies in terms
of their performance on the field but otherwise they can be—and
I am not saying all are—extremely naíve young men,
unaccustomed to pressures in the world, who have suddenly entered
a field in which on the one hand they are very, very prominent
on not just the sports pages but the rest of the pages in the
newspaper, but on the other hand they do not know how to handle
it. Is there not, therefore, a very strong responsibility on the
clubs to make sure that the way in which those young men behave
off the field is appropriate, particularly when they take them
away to training sessions?
Mr Brooking: Yes. I think, as
you have mentioned, for a large percentage of the time players
are under the control of the clubs. You have been listening to
evidence regarding drug testing. The professional football season
goes on for at least ten months of the year so during that period
of time players are very much under the influence and the direction
of the clubs. If you look at the back-up staff, certainly from
the drug-testing point of view and the educational process, there
are a lot of staff in place. Whether it be the club doctor, or
a sports scientist who now advises players on what they should
and should not be taking. Each Club also has a chartered physiotherapist,
so the players receive every support. Also, media training: all
the 16-19 year olds get some support in that area. But, yes, there
is a responsibility that goes with that and, yes, the clubs do
try to convey that. I think it would be wrong for me to sit here
and not defend them, because I do know for a lot of the clubs
the hard work that goes on, but there are individual weaknesses
and you cannot monitor the players for 24 hours of the day.
Q309 Chairman: You cannot monitor them
24 hours a day, but let us just take two examples. First, Bowyer
and Woodgate in Leeds United, who, in my view, have been very
deservedly relegated—and I come from Leeds—because
of the way they have conducted themselves. When you have young,
wealthy footballers going out on the town in that way, is there
not a responsibility on the club to try to enforce some kind of
code? Secondly, let us set aside, because it is not appropriate
to comment on matters which are sub judice, the criminal
charges against Leicester players, nevertheless when players are
abroad training, totally under the auspices of a club, ought there
not to be very stringent rules by the club about the way the men
conduct themselves when they are in that situation abroad, solely
because they are football players. It is very different to say
with other football players who may be wealthy and famous and
do things in their spare time.
Mr Brooking: Every club, I am
sure, has their own different codes of practice of control and
behaviour for players. Most of them, I can assure you, are pretty
strict. Certainly travelling as a group like that, I think you
will find the number of the trips, if you compared it with what
happened a few years ago, are becoming less and less because of
the concerns that you want to control players in that environment.
Sometimes, though, it is important during the season to try to
get the players away, if they are in a relegation battle for example,
to lift the spirits, to get away from the pressure of getting
results. But, again, if it lets the clubs down away from the pitch
then obviously that works against the club rather than for it.
It really is a decision for one club or another on the control
that they have, but I do believe in general that they do as much
as possible. In the end, it is very much down to certain individuals
might let them down, and of course they have to be punished accordingly.
Q310 Chris Bryant: What would Rio Ferdinand
have been tested for if he had been tested?
Mr Coward: He would have been
tested for either the full IOC list, to which I referred in an
earlier question, the full prohibited substances list, or we also
carry out a small number of additional tests on top of that for
a range of social drugs. But the high likelihood it would have
been for the whole prohibited substances list.
Q311 Chris Bryant: But you do not know?
Mr Coward: No, this is part of
the system that we would not know. It is very much a random, no
notice system, where the operation of it is managed for us by
UK Sport and is very much kept under wraps.
Q312 Chris Bryant: If there had been
recreational drugs—and I do not really like the term very
much—which would those have been?
Mr Coward: The full range. There
is a bewildering list of narcotics, cannabinoids, stimulants and
other substances which is far too long for me to go into.
Q313 Chris Bryant: In your submission,
you make some distinction, which is understandable, between performance
enhancing drugs and other drugs which might be considered to be
recreational or prohibited, illegal drugs, and that it is not
the job of the FA, as the Chairman said earlier, to police people's
drug habits. But there is clearly some overlap here because some
so-called recreational drugs like cannabis might be taken for
some enhancing purposes in sport.
Mr Coward: Part of the debate
which has gone on generally within sport is what should be on
the prohibited substance list, both for in-competition and out-of-competition
testing. Sports are different. We all talk about sport and consistency
and harmonisation, but sports are different. Surfing has been
referred to, here I am talking about football, and you have had
athletics and swimming. Sports have their own idiosyncrasies.
WADA has made the decision in its review that certain—taking
on your point—social drugs, recreational drugs, shall not
be part of the out-of-competition prohibited substance list. In
other sports where they have this out-of-competition testing regime—so
if you are an athlete and you are away from competition for perhaps
six or nine months—you would not be subject to testing for
cannabinoids or narcotics, heroin, for instance. Because of the
nature of our sport, we do not have that distinction. Our season
being, as Trevor said, 10 months, even as much as 48 weeks in
a year perhaps, we see that as all being covered by one list,
so we will be testing for the full range of substances.
Q314 Chris Bryant: If you are saying
that these are not enhancing, then I do not understand why you
are taking on this policing role.
Mr Coward: I will give you the
reason—and this is something which we have been debating
with our review group, which includes players' union representatives,
advised and helped by Lord Coe and other people from other sports,
helping us with their experience so that we can try to arrive
at an even better system than the one we have at the moment. Sport
takes the view, football takes the view, that it is important
for the players, as Trevor said, to understand the issue of social
drug use. There is a massive education programme in which we are
involved, together with the PFA, and of which we are very proud.
The positive finding results of 1% of tests to which we refer
in the written evidence compares, I would suggest, remarkably
well against national trends in the particular age ranges and
the demographics we are talking about. We are very proud of that.
We want, however, to back that up with a testing regime. If you
are found through that testing regime to have social drug use
identified, we have a system—
Q315 Chris Bryant: I am sorry, but there
is no other line of work in the country where people would accept
that, because they would think that is an infringement of their
personal liberty. Indeed, the law of the land does not allow for
random testing of drivers, even, when there may have been drug
use.
Mr Coward: You are right. That
is a very good point. Football itself has decided to do this,
of itself, for itself. As I say, this is very much a joint action
between The Football Association as the governing body; the employers'
organisations, the leagues, for the clubs; and the employees,
the players. It is something we all want to do for a very clear
purpose, as I said. These are young men who are athletes, who
have a chance to have a great career, albeit, in many cases, a
brief career, as a professional footballer. The game itself has
decided to go through this process. You have heard evidence from
Nick Bitel and others, which has highlighted this as being, as
they see it, an example of good practice. This is something of
which we are very proud, something which works to help players
understand their responsibilities, help them get through that,
give them a chance, a second chance if that is required, but also
make them aware that the game will not accept, for instance, repeat
transgression.
Q316 Rosemary McKenna: Could I just make
it clear that I am a football supporter and my family are football
supporters, so I am not attacking football in any way. I think
it plays a very important role in the life of the country, especially
the young boys' and girls' football clubs, but one of the areas
which concerns me most is the fact that very young players leave
home and go to football clubs quite a distance away from home,
where they stay away from home at a very vulnerable time in their
lives, to be trained, and very few of them are successful. What
kind of education programme do you run or what kind of education
do they get to assist them in having a proper career, other than
if they are not successful in football?
Mr Brooking: It is a pretty detailed
education programme now. The academies go down to quite a young
age—as you possibly know, down to nine now, although the
players do not actually sign professionally until 16. Clubs are
not allowed to take youngsters from outside one hour's travelling
distance from their home, so they are not allowed to take them
from all over the country and it is only at the signing-on stage,
from 16-19, when they might have to take up lodgings and actually
move into an area.
Q317 Rosemary McKenna: So that does not
happen any more.
Mr Brooking: No, there was a clamp
down on that issue in the younger age group. The 16-19 age group
has an opportunity to do a whole range of educational courses
and lessons. All Premiership clubs, particularly at the top end,
have a full-time educational welfare officer who works with the
youngsters. And during the build up to being good enough to get
signed on, the clubs emphasise to their families the percentage
that go on to make the grade. I was at a local grammar school
and to be honest the thought of me going into football lasted
30 seconds with my careers officer, so my parents were very much
guided by the club. I got day release to go to college, and there
were opportunities there: I took O-levels, A-levels and business
courses and there is the same opportunity there for youngsters
now.
Q318 Rosemary McKenna: To be fair, most
of the youngsters now who are not going to achieve that and they
go away full of ambition, they think they are going to be the
next Beckham, and it does not happen. Do the clubs follow that
up? They want to take as many as possible so that they get the
best and the rest are discarded.
Mr Brooking: There are more sporting
opportunities now, so you can do sport and recreation courses,
and can get a certain level of qualifications and NVQs, to allow
you to move into sport and recreation, if you get released, shall
we say, at the age of 19. You have not wasted those two or three
years and you already have some qualifications to move into an
area, particularly if you are interested in sport and football.
One of the areas in which I would certainly like to work a lot
more with government now is coaching. Certainly, having gone into
The FA over the last three or four months, we need to expand the
number of good quality coaches, particularly at grass roots level,
because we have 17,000 primary schools where a lot of the PE and
sport experience is very poor. A lot of them are crying out for
football coaches. We need to try to make sure we have coaches
of the right quality in schools. I think it is an opportunity
for some of those youngsters you have mentioned who have not been
able to go on and make the grade, to move into areas within sport
and recreation, such as football coaching.
Q319 Rosemary McKenna: If I may move
on to another aspect, that of role models. Is it the more open
society we are in, along with the cult of celebrity that we have,
that is exposing the kind of behaviour in some young footballers
that has always been there but which we are now much more aware
of? I am particularly talking about the attitude to women of young
footballers—a lot of young footballers.
Mr Brooking: Some would say it
is a reflection of some of the behaviour you get in any seaside
town in Britain during the summer months, when young people are
unable to control their drinking. In football, a percentage of
players will be getting the publicity for the same actions that
are going on across the country. We in football certainly have
to improve that. I accept that. It is mentioned that money is
awash in football, but in one sector of the game is the professional
club with the first team and the academy that we have talked about,
and right at the other side there is a sector of the game called
"Football in the Community". Football in the Community
is almost self-funded; they tap into a lot of local funding streams,
and they deliver football to the schools, in partnership with
the police and the probation service—to youngsters who are
really into problems with vandalism, crime and drugs. We work
with schools with bullying issues. For instance this summer, to
coincide with Euro 2004, we have produced a whole range of educational
resources to improve the subjects of numeracy; literacy; geography
(themed around locating all the countries taking part); sports
science (themed around a picture of Michael Owen showing how his
body operates); and nutrition (themed around the food that one
of the players would eat). The initiative uses football to educate
on a number of issues. Some of the evidence is that youngsters
who have been performing poorly in academic subjects, suddenly
are improving significantly. Particularly in numeracy and literacy;
through their interest in football, they are improving numeracy
by learning about league tables, and also improving literacy by
learning about details of players, so that interest is being used
right the way across the social agenda.
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