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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 499-iv House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE CULTURE MEDIA AND SPORTS COMMITTEE
Tuesday 4 May 2004 MR TREVOR BROOKING and MR NIC COWARD MS GUINEVERE BATTEN, MR GILES B LONG and MR ADAM PENGILLY MS SUE CAMPBELL CBE and MR JOHN SCOTT Evidence heard in Public Questions 296 - 382
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday 4 May 2004 Members present Mr Gerald Kaufman, in the Chair Chris Bryant Mr Frank Doran Mr Adrian Flook Charles Hendry Alan Keen Rosemary McKenna Derek Wyatt ________________ Memorandum submitted by The Football Association
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Trevor Brooking, Director of Football Development, and Mr Nic Coward, Director of Corporate & Legal Affairs, The Football Association, examined.
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 from UK Sport in the public interest 250. 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 have those tests and they apply, as I say, across a whole range of English matches 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; those world's leading 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 through UEFA at UEFA club matches, and also, at the European Championships, as an example, UEFA will be carrying out its own UEFA programme for this 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. We have a range of testing. The vast majority of those tests are for all the 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 - as I say, from almost 8,000 tests we had one positive find, one find for a performance enhancing substance. We carry out those tests across a whole range of activities and for a whole range of substances. 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 list. The out-of-competition list, as they have defined it, will I think going forward not include certain social drugs. Narcotics and cannabiniods will not be part of the wider out-of-competition test. That perhaps does not affect us, because, as I want to make clear, we have a system where our out-of-competition means actually the whole of our season. Our "out of competition" means training ground, so we do not really have an out of competition 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: 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 but generally in their lives and the ill effects to themselves and others of social drugs use. 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 rules; a breach of those rules is what we deal with under our rules of contract between ourselves and everyone else in the game. That is our function. Q301 Derek Wyatt: Over ten years, if there are10,000 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 area, 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, as I say, are all different. One was a deliberate avoidance, of leaping through a window having been notified. That player was subject to an ongoing process. That leads me into an area which I can perhaps pick up now. That lead 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, having been told today, that UEFA see that as an "enlightened" (their word) best practice to seek to get a player back on his feet. The second issue is where a player was notified, went to the testing officers and said, "I understand I have been notified but for the following pressing reasons may I please go elsewhere and then come back?" which the UK Sport testing officers accepted. He then, for reasons outside his control, was not able to get back. He was dealt with by a commission and received a very low sentence for what was a technical breach, a breach which the commission accepted was outside his control and which the testing officers accepted. 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 they are doing. 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 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 footballer's 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 - 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 shared 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. Should I 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 from speaking to the two Davids over many years - have a different view, but there are many sports which do not share that 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 - and I understand David Sparks's 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 but we have tried and tested processes. As Lord Coe was saying, "Do not tinker with these processes because these processes are best practice, they have served you well." When I read a quote from Michelle Verroken in a recent newspaper and also the quote from Richard Callicott, the former chair of UK Sport, they are both saying that The FA, football, has the best programme in this area in UK Sport and we are very proud of that. Derek Wyatt: Thank you, Chairman. Q305 Chris Bryant: Mr Brooker, 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 is a massive high profile sport in this country, it is our national game, and so you will get that coverage. Unfortunately with that coverage you will also get predominantly the controversial issues which will get the coverage. 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 will not get the 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 right across the board. We do a lot of work with Football Foundation, Positive Futures, working with disadvantaged youngsters who are into problems with crimes and 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 club, 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 attention. Everyone has an education programme, an officer. All the 16 to 19 year old youngsters who are taken on by the clubs and also through the academy systems all go through an educational process on all the pitfalls of the distractions away from the game. Obviously you have to be dedicated and reasonably fit to achieve the levels of playing that you are being asked to play so the areas of drinking, drugs, general preparation, 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 probably over 85-90 per cent of those youngsters will not stay in the game long term. There is a big drop-out rate and we want to make sure those youngsters are not adversely affected and they are not then tempted to go into other areas because they look on themselves as a failure. So there is a big education process that goes on and I think we have made a lot of 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 usually frustrating. I think, again, you try to emphasis 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 professions. Having said that, I think all clubs, and certainly The FA, 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 that 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 emphasis this is a very small percentage and there are 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, as I say, 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 naïve 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 the evidence of drugs testing and the season goes on for at least ten months of the year so during that period of time they 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 everyone has a sports scientist now to advise them on what they should be taking and what they should not be taking, a chartered physiotherapist, so they get every support. Also, media training: all the 16-19 year olds try to get some support on 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 those 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 going away as a group like that, I think you will find a 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 during that environment. Sometimes, though, it is important during the season to try to get the players away, if they are in a relegation scrabble or whatever, 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 that situation rather than for it. It really is from one club to another on the control that they have, but I do believe 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 just for a range of social drugs. But the high likelihood it would have been for the whole range of the 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 six/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 today 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, of which we are very proud. The positive finding of one per cent to which we refer in the 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, 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, and the game itself has decided to go through this process. You have heard evidence from Nick Patel and others which has highlighted this as being, as they see it, an exemplar 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 they do not actually get signed on until 16. Clubs are not allowed to take youngsters from outside one hour's travelling distance, so at the younger age now 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 of the younger age group. The 16-19 age group have 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, you emphasise to families the percentage ratio that go on to make the grade, because if you have a particularly strong academic youngster who then takes the plunge .... 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, so you can get a certain level of qualifications and NVQs, which you then move into a sport and recreation course as a result, if you get released, shall we say, at the end of your interim period at 19. You have not wasted those two or three years and you already have some accreditation and qualifications to move into an area, particularly if they 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 on the coaching issue. 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, because we have 17,000 primary schools where a lot of the PE and sport experience is very poor and a lot of them are crying out for football coaches to go in. We need to try to make sure we have coaches of the right quality to go in. 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 the sport and recreation trade, 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 a seaside town during the summer months as well, when they are unable to control their drinking. In football, a percentage of those will be getting the publicity that sometimes is 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 what you have in one sector is the professional club with the first team and the academy that we have talked about, and right at the other side you have a sector called football in the community. The football in the community is almost a self-funded situation; they tap into a lot of local funded streams, but they deliver to the schools, with the police and the probation service - with youngsters who are really into problems with vandalism, crime and drugs. We work with schools with bullying issues. For instance, this summer, Euro 2004, we have a whole range of educational resources based on numeracy; literacy; geography (because of all the clubs taking part); sports science (a picture of Michael Owen with his body and how it operates with muscles, how it works with the heart); nutrition (the food one of the players would eat to compare with your diet), using football right across the education sector. Some of the evidence is that youngsters who have been really poorly performing in academic subjects, suddenly are improving significantly, particularly in numeracy and literacy. Through their interest in players, they are learning about goals for, goals against, how many points, how many goals they have got, and also, from the literacy point of view, details about their players, so that interest is being used right the way across the social agenda. Q320 Rosemary McKenna: But you did not answer the question about the attitude towards women. I think that is absolutely crucial. I think "Footballers' Wives", for example, is an appalling programme. Having watched one episode, I will never ever watch it again. That kind of thing gives football a bad name. Mr Brooking: I think most footballers' wives would say that is pretty fictional. Q321 Rosemary McKenna: Is it fictional? Mr Brooking: If you believe the programme, that is worrying. Q322 Rosemary McKenna: Is it fictional or is it based on reality? Mr Brooking: Again, like any professional life, a very small percentage could happen. But I think it is a dreadful suggestion, when I meet all the genuine people within sport. For you to say that footballers treat ladies in a different way is an absolute nonsense. Q323 Chairman: You do not agree with that. Mr Brooking: Most footballers, their behaviour and the way they conduct themselves is exemplary. Chairman: I think we will be addressing television a bit later in this session and I am sure we all have our views on that. Q324 Mr Flook: The West Country and the South-West is not particularly blessed with top-flight clubs and most of your emphasis, Mr Brooking, so far seems to have been on what they are doing at the premier division. Second and third division clubs who are less wealthy, how much help does The FA give them? Is there a template, where you say: This is what you should be doing and all of this should be a minimum? Mr Brooking: All clubs have what they would term centres of excellence, which are trying to identify talent, and then all clubs through a different range will have what we term as football in the community. Obviously also The FA have their county associations, which are working out to what you would call grass root football, certainly an area I would like The FA to work with. For me the starting point in any behavioural pattern has to be with the youngsters. I believe a quality football coach communicates better than any other person in their lives, other than the family, and I think a lot of school football has, because of a lack of financial support, drifted into mums and dads running sides now. Sometimes the mums and dads really do some fantastic work; sometimes they run it as a sort of professional club, reliving the opportunity to be a manager, and then you get the shouting and hollering and the fear factor coming into youngsters. In my role in the development side of the game, I believe that we have a big role to play in guiding the mums and dads in how they should be conducting themselves on the line, so as they do not transmit that to youngsters who then repeat what they hear on the sidelines. I believe coaching through schools, giving better guidance and support for those involved in junior football, can be the starting point to work through the system. It is not easy to change somebody in their twenties who has been brought up in a culture where they do misbehave, but certainly we still work very much with our county associations right across the board in grass roots football, and certainly in those league clubs outside the premiership there is still a lot of good work going on and educational support, and they are all locked into the education system with any youngsters that are taken on during their training schemes. It is actually just changing from a three year to a two year programme which they call MACE now but that is linked in with DfES. Q325 Mr Flook: Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers Association sent us some information in which he says, "As far as I am aware, professional footballers are the only profession who willingly have in their contract a commitment to six hours a week community work." That is not quite true because Rugby Football Union, particularly premier league, have that, but does that work at the ground level? Mr Brooking: I think you will find in any club naturally you will have certain players who are more obviously identified as those being a good example to carry out and to do work in the community. I think in some of the evidence to you from the premiership and league clubs you have had examples where very high profile players are doing a lot of good work. A lot have been involved in recent weeks and months because obviously you saw the physical activity by Professor Donaldson last week about what is required and the anti-obesity programmes now that are being introduced and a lot of the football in the community schemes are involved and a lot of players are going out to local clubs and schools and being used in that profile to try to encourage youngsters to take more physical activity. A lot of football in the community schemes also do a lot of work where you can lock in with a local school for a term's work, where they are given points for attitude, behaviour, getting homework in on time, a whole range of skills linked in with their school work, and at the end of the term those high scoring youngsters are given free tickets to the local ground. So football is working very much locally with identifying the club and what they can contribute to the community as well. Certainly I would challenge some of you, wherever your constituency is, to try to get to the nearest professional football club and to try to find out what community work in the game is going on. I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Q326 Chairman: Certainly in Manchester there is marvellous work by both of the clubs. Mr Brooking: Yes. Q327 Mr Doran: This inquiry, as you know, is about drugs and role models in sport and I am quite interested in the issue of where responsibility lies in the various tiers in football in this country. It is quite clear from the evidence we have received from you, written and oral, that The FA sees it as its responsibility to deal with the drugs issue and it has in train a whole process for ensuring that drugs are dealt with in the sport. At the player level, clearly there are responsibilities on the player, which some of the cases we have talked about outline, and sometimes they meet their responsibilities, sometimes they do not. Where it strikes me there may be a gap is at the level of the club, and I would be interested if you could spell out to me how you see the responsibility of the individual clubs in this respect. Mr Coward: Trevor has outlined the more general responsibilities of clubs, particularly through the academies and the centres of excellence on the general way that a player should behave, what it means to be a professional footballer. Trevor has also outlined the football in the community scheme. That in itself is another example of that relationship between ourselves and the players union, the PFA, which we think works very well. Certainly the clubs themselves and the players union both see the need to ensure their players are given the best possible chance to understand their duties. That is by way of answering your question as to what club responsibility is there on clubs. Clubs do fully recognise their responsibility. I do not think the game, as Trevor has said, has enjoyed in any way the stories that have been arising around the sport. We have an incredibly successful sport, a sport which is loved by millions, but a sport therefore which understands its responsibilities, so when clubs see these issues going on they are very well aware of them and want to address them. As I say, there are many partnerships. Despite what we read about what may go on between the various organisations in football, there is a huge amount of work that goes on at many levels. It is one of our jobs to try to join up all those various aspects. Trevor has mentioned what we see, for instance, happening at academies and centres of excellence with clubs. We want to make sure that county FAs are communicating with soccer parents, so that, as Trevor explained, those parents coming together to create a small community round a football club realise how important that is for those kids that are coming into their care, child protection being an issue - and we are very proud to say we have trained 60,000 people in an awareness programme. That is something football has done because we understand our responsibility which comes with our incredible significance in modern society. Mr Brooking: There is also the Football Foundation - and you probably know the background t that anyway - where the funding has three partners, The FA, the premiership and then government, recognising £60 million a year to put something back into the game. For every £1 government has put in, they have got £5 back into that funding, and some £350 million has gone into the game through the Football Foundation, and that I think is clubs and football recognising that they have to contribute to grass roots. Having said that, of course, it was also about a year ago recognised that some £2 billion would be needed to bring changing facilities and pitches up to the quality they should be, so even that £350 million, we have to accept, is not going to go very far. If we are going to bring lots of youngsters through - and girls football now is the fastest rowing sport in the country - where are they going to play? Where are the facilities? Where are the referees? Where are the volunteers and the administrators? We have to be thinking that now. That is why we are trying to work with government on comprehensive spending issues because we have to be anticipating and preparing for that now, because when they come out of school there is not going to be anywhere for them to go if we do not invest very quickly. Q328 Mr Doran: We are running short of time and, although there are a number of questions I wanted to ask you, I am going to have to curtail my contribution. The one area that does concern me is the issue of drugs. The most high profile case recently has been the Rio Ferdinand case. There are two issues there that concern me. One is that there does not appear to be any responsibility on the club to deliver the player for testing. I would like you to comment on that. The other is the aftermath of the case. If I could summarise it, putting my legal hat on, a player has breached The FA rules by not attending for testing, he has gone through the process and has been punished. As a lawyer with some experience in employment law, it seems to me that he has put himself in a position where he is unable to fulfil the terms of his contract, but my understanding - and I only understand this from the press - is the player continues to be paid his usual wages throughout the process of his suspension. It does not seem to me that that sends the right messages about the consequences, if you like, for someone who has breached the rules. I understand that this whole affair would have had devastating effects on Rio Ferdinand's career, there is no question about that, but the fact that he will continue to be paid a massive salary, despite the fact that he has breached his contract in this way and created massive problems for the game of football, strikes me as deserving some investigation. Mr Coward: To deal with the first element, the general point is we, The Football Association, on behalf of the game, believe we have a very effective doping control programme, from the education process through to the collection and sampling process and through to case management. Not only do we say that but UK Sport says that. We are the UK's leader - and this is UK Sport telling us, this is echoed by Lord Coe and by others who have given evidence to you, our international governing body and our European governing body. We work together with some key agencies in this area, one of which is UK Sport and UK Sport carry out the collection process for a great number of sports in this country, well, the UK, with obviously ourselves the English Football Association. That includes athletics, swimming, rugby football league and others. It is UK Sport who carry out that same WADA accredited, IOC accredited, ISO accredited process at every sport they carry out. That is what we are effectively contracting in from them. We are very satisfied that when the UK Sport team arrive they carry out a process which is best in field, best in class. We rely on them, therefore, when they arrive at a ground, to deal with the communication process, the notification process, and, save for the admittedly one very high profile case to which you have referred, this process has worked fantastically well for ten years. One of the key messages with which we have had to deal with from our review group is: "If you have a great system that is actually serving your sport well, don't change it unless you really do think it is going to make it even better." The second point in relation to the employment issue, each professional footballer, as you will know, is employed on the basis of the collectively bargained employment agreement that exists between the employers and the employees, the clubs through their leagues, and the union. It would not be right to go into the particulars of any one case but these are, just like any other employment issue, primarily down to the employer. Mr Doran: Perhaps you could say whether The FA is concerned abut the message that it sends. Chairman: I am sorry, we are running very late and we have Alan still to ask questions. Q329 Alan Keen: I will be as brief as I can. I do not know whether you have seen our agenda, Trevor, but it says, "Trevor Brooking, Director of Development and a player (to be confirmed)". I am sure that refers to the fact that you had not confirmed your attendance rather than that more research was being done into whether you were a player or not! I am glad Frank gave you the opportunity to mention Football Foundation: I know there are problems with its funding at the moment and you have said how vital it is. There is a saying football supporters have, "I wouldn't go up the end of our street to watch XYZ United," but when I saw Sky News last night I almost wished I had gone half way down our street to see the Broncos play because a wonderful fight on the pitch went on. I have great respect for rugby league, but if that had been a football player I would have been ashamed because I care greatly about how people look at our great game. I would like to ask you what The FA intends to do about the bad impression that the game creates with players diving on occasions to try to gain a penalty. Sometimes they dive because they have been tripped up and it is a genuine penalty. What plans do you have to try to eradicate that? Mr Brooking: You probably have a submission from the referee section which is trying to clamp down on obvious dives. It is not easy on occasions and it is throwing a lot of responsibility on them to get decisions right: Is there contact or is there not? I have to say, from my own experience, from the playing and dressing room point of view, most players find it pretty appalling to try to cheat in that manner. I think the media and TV could do us all a great service by highlighting the obvious incidents because the "name and shame" philosophy I think is a good one in this area. I do not believe it contributes anything to the game. It is a bad example and it is something we want to clamp down on. Naturally, you can get cautioned for the obvious offences and referees are making it clear that they want to clamp down on that, but, again, as I mentioned, clubs have to play a part, they have to give a steer; managers have to make sure they do see the incident or they do look at it on the video and have a word with the player and not say, "Oh, I didn't see the incident, I can't really comment." We have to get a collective responsibility all around the table. Q330 Alan Keen: I agree the diving or not diving when there is contact or not contact made with a player in the box is probably the most difficult thing to eradicate, because it is impossible even with television close-ups to know exactly what the situation is. There is one thing which is easier to detect and I will give you the example of Makele: you did not need to be a boxing expert to know that the way that he fell had little to do with the power of the blow or push on the back of his head. Could I come on to something I think could be eradicated and I would like to know your views on it. You may say an MP has a bit of a cheek insinuating that players are liars, but how many times in a game where it is not always so easy to know, but the players themselves know: a player in a white shirt, a player in a red shirt, "Our ball, ref." It is watched by young kids, they think it is the thing to do and it is live. It is the thing that would be the easiest to eradicate. The penalty area incidents are difficult, but this, "Our ball, ref," have you given any thought to this since you have been in your new position? Mr Brooking: I believe the key area for me in my role must be to start with the very young person, if you can eradicate or improve or dilute that taking place in junior football in schools and get guidance for the mums and dads and those running the team. That is when they are at their most impressionable age, you are quite right, and if they watch it on TV then they go out and repeat it, but somebody has to be out there spreading the message that that is not the way to compete. I do believe by my development role I have to start at the grass roots and that age category. Having said that, you cannot just ignore what is going on in the professionals' game and it is something to try to work with the clubs and the disciplinary process to make sure that we turn that round . As you know, it has been revamped over the last few months, and you could not change it half way through the season, but next year it will be much quicker, so there will be much more reaction to incidents and players will be suspended much earlier than the dragged out cases we have seen this season. I think that will in turn make it a much more effective system and hopefully get the message home much earlier and quicker and then hopefully by that time players will start to learn that they are better playing for their side than being suspended for one-third of the season. Alan Keen: Thank you. We are running short of time, so we will have to cut it short. Chairman: I am sorry; it just shows how very important and interesting the evidence we have received is, but we are running very late and, while I am sure lots of people have more questions to ask, it would be discourteous to our other witnesses if we were to continue this session. Thank you very much indeed. Witnesses: Ms Guinevere Batten, Olympic Rower (Silver Medallist), Mr Giles B Long, Paralympic swimmer (Triple Gold Medallist), and Mr Adam Pengilly, Winter Olympic Bob Skeleton, British Athletes Commission, examined
Chairman: Good morning. Thank you very much for coming. We are sorry to keep you waiting, but you were there; it may be you were interested in what they had to tell us. Derek Wyatt. Q331 Derek Wyatt: Can we start by congratulating you all on your successes over the last couple of Olympics. Terribly impressive. Can you tell us how often drugs is brought up as an issue at the Athletes Commission, how often that in itself meets and how many members it has, and so on? Ms Batten: We tend to meet as a big group once a year. We came into existence as the British Athletes Commission in November of this year, prior to that we were the British Olympic Association Athletes Commission. I would say that doping, or doping issues, probably arose at most of our meetings and we very regularly had representatives from UK Sport talking to us about the WADA code and the education processes. So it was probably one of the top three topics that came up in the Commission. Q332 Derek Wyatt: Just to clarify, how many people from each sport get on to the Commission. Is it one person or two people? Ms Batten: The regulations that we have is that each sport is able to have two representatives but they only have one vote. The actual Council sits. Each Olympic and Paralympic sport is a world class sport as designated by our Sports Councils. They are entitled to bring individuals to that. It is quite a loose arrangement. It very much depends upon the athletes and representative bodies within the sports, and in some sports that is at the very early stages of development. Q333 Derek Wyatt: One problem, looking at the Athens games, is clearly how many American athletes seem to be associated with one particular coach who seems to have had anyway a legacy of enhancement drugs. In America there is a very different attitude towards drugs. If you look at the average baseball player, the average football player, you cannot as a line‑end or as a defender in American football not be taking enhancement drugs. It is simply impossible to go from that bulk at age 15 or 16. So it is a very different culture in America with professional sports which, I think, tips over into its so‑called other sports, because it plays sports no‑one else plays largely. Is it a concern to you that coming to the Athens games there may be more athletes from America that are what are called "dirty" than are "clean"? Will it ultimately lead, do you think, to a boycott of athletes, or rowers, or people saying, "We have had enough of this. Either come clean or we do not want to compete against you"? Ms Batten: I think the Athletes Commission, the British Athletes Commission, from their replies, from the questionnaires that were given to the returning athletes from Sydney, there was a very strong message about how we, as athletes, want Britain to take a very strong stance on anti‑doping. Q334 Derek Wyatt: Have either of you got a view? Mr Long: In my experience America has been just as clean as everyone else, to be honest. In Paralympic sport we really do not have the same kind of depth of drug problems that our able‑bodied counterparts experience. Partly, I think, perhaps because there is not as much money in it and it is still very green, Paralympic sport, in terms of an international stage; it is really only ever broadcast or televised once every four years, and America is still far behind the rest of the world, so we do not really have any experience with the problem that you suggest. Mr Pengilly: From a winter sports point of view, and Olympic sports I am talking about particularly, you saw the American Anti‑Doping Agency have taken generally quite a strong stance. There is an incident of a one chap, Pavle Jovanovic, a bobsleigher, having tested positive for nandrolone about two months before the Salt Lake Olympics, and he has had a two‑year ban and obviously missed out. He was their top brake‑man. For half the season they had been winning all the races, they were on the home track, and that basically stopped them winning. A lot of people in the know believe that that stopped them winning a gold medal in the men's bobsleigh events. Q335 Derek Wyatt: Would you wish that not just the athlete concerned, but also his coach and also his body, if it is athletics or basketball, was also banned for two years? We have had this problem now for 30/40 years in the Olympics. It generally comes up in the Olympics because it is on world‑wide television. Do you think we have pussy‑footed around for too long over this issue? Ms Batten: I think it is a very, very hard issue to follow. If we went down the avenue that you want, what would happen if the athlete had taken the banned drug of their own initiative and without the pressure or input coming from their drug or their support staff? Each case is very, very different. I am not saying one way or the other would be the right way, but I am just saying there are many, many examples of perhaps the coach not being involved in that situation. Mr Long: I think it is very easy to put forward a simple solution to a very complex problem. Q336 Derek Wyatt: But nothing has changed over 30 years? Mr Long: True, but does that mean that the innocent athlete should be barred from competing because someone else in their sport has got their sport thrown out of the Olympics? Mr Pengilly: I used to coach at national level and, as a coach working closely on a daily basis and being good friends with as well as coaching this national team, I would not have known one way or the other what they were putting into their bodies, and I do not think it is fair or right to hold a coach or a national governing body directly responsible. You are always going to get some bad eggs. I think that is unfortunately the way it is. Q337 Chris Bryant: The question of medicinal drugs and performance enhancing drugs we have raised a few times on the Committee: the Night Nurse question, I guess. Is this more of an issue for Paralympic athletes? Mr Long: It can be. I do know of some athletes, certainly in the more severely disabled categories who require some heavy duty drugs, obviously I cannot tell you what they are because I do not know, but there is dispensation for that. Q338 Chris Bryant: When you say "dispensation", do you mean that within the Paralympic Association there is a‑‑‑‑ Mr Long: A waiver, say if you are an epileptic and you have controlling drugs for that which may cross legality boundaries. Q339 Chris Bryant: What do you mean "cross legality boundaries"? Mr Long: Within what is banned, what is not within the WADA code or the IPC code. Q340 Chris Bryant: What do you think about the labelling of medicinal drugs that can be bought over the counter? Obviously it is a different list in different countries. You can buy some things over the counter and in some countries you cannot. Do you think there is sufficient labelling? Would you welcome some kind of kite‑mark, if it could be agreed, on an international basis? Ms Batten: Yes. This is one of the highlights of the issues, the areas on which we spend a lot of time talking. Most of our athletes are spending quite a long time abroad. The support structure that has currently been available in Britain through UK Sport has only been linked to British drugs, and we worked, and we are still trying quite strongly to try and push for better support in that area. From my own primary example, I am three weeks out of the Olympic Games. I am in France. I go to a doctor for antibiotics. I ring back to my national governing body to go onto the drugs help‑line to identify that the drugs that I have been prescribed were legitimate. Of course, they were not. They were French drugs at the time. Our doctor was on holiday in Spain. She was then able to ring through to me, about 12 hours later, to tell me not to take the medication that I had been prescribed, but I had actually gone ahead and taken one first round of that. So it is a very difficult situation. It would have been appalling for me and for my fellow team members if I had then tested positive and was unable to go to the Olympic Games purely for an issue in that sort of area. Q341 Chris Bryant: Were you telling me a real story or a hypothetical story? Ms Batten: No, that was a real story. That happened to me prior to Sydney, and that happens every single day for athletes travelling abroad. Q342 Chris Bryant: So some kind of kite‑mark, but it would have to be an international one for it to be genuinely effective? Ms Batten: Ideally linked to something like WADA, or something like that which was world‑wide, but very, very difficult. Mr Pengilly: Alan Baxter is classic example at Salt Lake with his Vick inhaler where they are slightly different, the American version, to the UK version, which is slightly significant. Q343 Chris Bryant: I should say, incidentally, when I was asking about Night Nurse last time I was on Night Nurse myself! The relationship between illegal drugs, in other words cannabis, cocaine and so on, where do you sit on whether WADA should be taking those out of the code and saying that they are not going to be testing for those? Ms Batten: For me personally, I feel that I have not got a problem with them testing those drugs because I feel they are against the law anyway, and if there is an element of us having responsibility for our sports and for the young people who are coming behind us, then I think there will be a positive way that we could actually say we are tested for these drugs and we come out clean. My other concern would be that often when you look at the list, and I do not deem to be an expert, sometimes old drugs are on there and you think, "Why are they on there?" They may be on there for reasons presumably, they may be masking, there are a lot of reasons why those drugs are on there, and often it is not black and white. Individually I tend to accept what is on that list. Q344 Chris Bryant: Take me through the regimes for the Winter Olympics, because one of the issues that has come up before us is in athletics. The moment you come off, you have finished your 100 metres, you are escorted from that moment to the moment that the test is done. We have seen that in some other sports it is not quite the same. What is it for the Winter Olympics? Mr Pengilly: At the actual Olympics‑‑‑‑ Q345 Chris Bryant: For the Olympics itself I understand it is different, but for winter sports I mean? Mr Pengilly: The same sort of thing applies: someone will notify that you are about to be tested. You are normally due to be tested within an hour. That person is supposed to stay with you for that time. Often you have got some sort of ceremony in the meantime, so they will often stay with you through that. It depends on how the program works, but that person should remain with you most of the time. Generally it does happen, although in some circumstances it does not, which is why having regulations throughout using the WADA code is really important, because I would be quite confident to be tested in the UK by UK Sport, but not always in other countries where the system might not be so stringent. Q346 Chris Bryant: And out of competition testing: what happens? Mr Pengilly: The tester will come to you, wherever you are training, or at home, and again stay with you until you are able to give a sample. It should go through the process hook, line and sinker, so to speak. I think it varies from sport to sport, but most athletes these days are reasonably well educated and certainly once they get to a high level, but perhaps not all at a developmental stage with, say, a long‑term athlete development. Q347 Rosemary McKenna: Can I probe a bit on the issue about nasal spray and the inadvertent taking of a banned substance that is not in the UK version? Can the use of that have been so significant as to be detectable? Would that not suggest that there is quite a lot of use, if it was significant? Mr Pengilly: Do you mean how significant was the methyl-amphetamine in terms of an athlete's performance? Q348 Rosemary McKenna: Yes? Mr Pengilly: The BOA spent a lot of time with the IOC about it post Athens. I am not au fait with all of the details, but basically there is an alpha and a beta type methyl amphetamine. One is a stimulant and one acts not as a stimulant but it is just recognised as one drug within the banned list. The one actually within the Vicks inhaler that Alan took was not a stimulant, and also it was in such a small amount that, even if it was, the doctors all agreed, it would have had no effect. Q349 Rosemary McKenna: Does that not bring into disrepute the system of testing if an insignificant amount is enough to strip someone of a medal and all the concentrated effort is on that and all the publicity is on that and not serious drug‑taking? Mr Pengilly: Where do you draw the line? Different things will work differently for different people. The line the Athletes Commission have always held is if something is in your body and it is not supposed to be there, you are cheating, basically, and, mistake or non‑mistake, unfortunately that is what happened. You cannot have any grey areas with this; it has got to be black and white unfortunately. Q350 Rosemary McKenna: It was simply because you could prove that he was not aware that it was in the‑‑‑‑ Mr Pengilly: Yes, he got stripped of the medal, but he did not get stripped of his points. It did not affect his subsequent career or the lottery funding, just the medal, because of what they proved in the subsequent hearings. Q351 Rosemary McKenna: Can I move on slightly to another issue, and that is role-models in a wider sense. Clearly you three give up your time to help regulate the sport, which is excellent and very important. Could athletes not be persuaded to give up more of their time to be in the public eye as role-models to help young people and to promote a better way of life and a healthier lifestyle? Ms Batten: I think you need to take individual sports in a sports basis. For example, if I took you through a typical day for an endurance rower, they would have somewhere in the region of about two hours available where they should be sleeping if they are out there to perform properly at the Olympic Games; and the margins between victory in a gold medal to coming fourth are tiny, and if we are expecting athletes to go out on a regular basis into schools, sometimes having travelled quite a long distance, at a time which fit the school timetables ‑ schools have great difficulty with that ‑ also going into an environment where there is a high number of viruses and a lot of athletes ... Q352 Rosemary McKenna: Yes, I taught for a number of years. I understand that. Ms Batten: It is quite a high risk thing to do. I know a lot of athletes that do go out and do go into schools. I did quite regularly when I was a competing athlete and still do now I have retired. Q353 Rosemary McKenna: Is there not a balance? Ms Batten: There needs to be a balance. Q354 Rosemary McKenna: Particularly if they are receiving government funding or lottery funding, there is a balance to be struck. I do think it is very important that young people see, achievement, see success and see role-models? Ms Batten: It is very, very important. When I look back through my career the role-models that there were at the time were very, very important to me, and if I had met them in a physical context it would have made a huge difference; but if you look at the amount the typical athlete is getting, it is not a huge amount of money. I came out of my sport; I had no pension; I had paid no National Insurance contributions and it was a very, very difficult time to come out. So you could see it is hard. You are almost a sub‑sub‑level of society as an athlete, at the same time being on the front of the television and the papers. Q355 Rosemary McKenna: You are not getting an income from the sport either. Ms Batten: It is a very interesting area. Q356 Mr Flook: Did you bring your silver medal with you? Ms Batten: I am sorry. Next time! Q357 Mr Flook: To all three of you. Do you think there are significant differences in the way that anti‑doping matters are dealt with relative to the different sports? Mr Pengilly, having been stupid enough, as I have, to throw yourself down an ice track on a skeleton thing, it would not make any difference if you were caught having taken recreational drugs or any type of drugs in comparison to, say, a rower or a swimmer? Mr Pengilly: I am sorry. I do not understand. Q358 Mr Flook: Is there any difference in the way that the anti‑doping matters are handled in different sports? In other words, one of the things we have seen or read from various groups that have sent us their submissions is that the athletes from non‑professional sports, particularly talking about soccer and rugby league, weight‑lifting, they are saying that when they are dealt with they are dealt with seemingly in a different way. Does that matter? A more lenient way might be the steer? Mr Pengilly: If you are talking about with regard to a positive result, yes. Q359 Mr Flook: I am? Mr Pengilly: It is one of the topics of debate and obviously something that you guys are going to have to discuss a lot, and something that the FA touched on as well, about: are you the prosecutor whereas normally you would be the supporting arm? There is also a conflict of interest as well, in that while your national governing body is dependent on its programme funding, because of the results that the athletes are obtaining, they are therefore then, if there is a positive result, having to switch around and then prosecute, but if that positive result is upheld and the athlete is then banned, they are obviously going to suffer because of that. We would be keen to see some sort of independent prosecution type of thing. We discussed this earlier. One of the issues is that it does not take up a huge amount of resource because obviously there are a lot of athletes and a lot of smaller governing bodies, in particular, who do not get - who are somewhat - the resource is quite small, and, therefore, if there was a lot of funding taken out for this body to be doing, say, the prosecuting, it would negatively impact the support that the athletes in particular and also the governing bodies are getting. Q360 Mr Flook: But a slider is not going to have to compete with a professional footballer - he might but it is unlikely - so why do they have to have the same? I am asking the question for you to give me the answer? Mr Pengilly: Why do we have to have the same system across sports? Q361 Mr Flook: Yes, all sports? Mr Long: Could I just say that I think it is important that you do have the same system across all sports. We have already, just from as far as we have got, worked out that it is a very complex state of affairs. If you start introducing drugs that you can have in certain sports and ones that you cannot have in others, it is not unheard of in paralympics for people to actually move across sport boundaries, particularly, say, if they have a degenerative condition, and if you did then you could end up with all sorts of things. You could take a substance which was okay in sport (a) and by the time you had moved to sport (b) you could find yourself potentially in the face of a ban. Q362 Mr Flook: It is also the difference in the way in which you are treated under your codes to the way a professional footballer might be treated? Mr Long: Sure. Ms Batten: If you, for example, look at tennis, it would be very different if that sort of thing happened in my sport of rowing, and I think as rowing came under the WADA quite a few of the periods of exclusion have been reduced. I think a standard makes it much simpler to understand. It is much simpler for the public to understand. It also creates a lot more strength in trying to get the sentences to stick, because that is very important, but I would like to see different sports giving out similar sentences. Q363 Alan Keen: You have answered the question I was going to ask you. Would each of you like to say what changes you would like to see? You have answered some of this already, but is there anything you would like to add to what you have said already? Ms Batten: For us the biggest thing I think the Government could do to help athletes in this country is to create a series of supplements that athletes can take that when they take them they know that the ingredients on the list are the ingredients, almost to say that it is a medical standard, so that when they are on the production line that they know that no other substances have fallen into the supplements when they are being produced. It is very, very hard for athletes to be completely responsible for what goes into their body when there are products that they need to take because, even though they can have a healthy balanced diet, there are times when athletes are travelling abroad, they are eating hotel accommodation food at very, very awkward times to fit in with their schedules, often the athletes themselves may be on weight restriction diets to bring themselves down into weight categories. They need to take supplements, and at the moment when they take a supplement off the shelf in Boots, even if it is one of the top brands, they are taking a risk with the whole of their career and it would be really beneficial. Q364 Charles Hendry: In your submission you talk a bit about the role-model aspect as well and you call for more support for athletes in arranged visits to schools. What sort of additional support are you looking for? Ms Batten: I have looked into this area a little bit. I have gone and spoken at schools and a lot of schools will come up to me after I have spoken and said, "Will you come down to my school. Will you do this?" There is a limit to the amount that you can do. I know there are a lot of athletes out there that would go and talk to schools, especially local athletes, because to travel halfway across Britain when you know an athlete lives next door, so giving the athletes that are very young, up and coming ones the skills in which to talk publicly would be very important, and also to link in the local athletes with the local schools. I am quite fortunate that my local sports college have adopted me as a patron, and it is very rewarding as an athlete to go back repeatedly to the same school and build up a relationship not only with the staff but with some of the children at the school. So that sort of assistance in getting that sorted would be helpful. Q365 Charles Hendry: Who should pay for that training and pay for the travelling? Who should that be? Ms Batten: I think that is up to our sports administrators to find that. Mr Pengilly: It could be something within the athletes' career education kind of plan, which has now got a new name. Ms Batten: Performance Lifestyle. Mr Pengilly: Performance Lifestyle, yes. That could be included in that, but I think some sort of training and also help working with children, because often some people would describe elite athletes as a bit obsessive about what they do, clinical psychologists might often say that, not that we are freaks or anything, but a bit of training to work with children as well would not go amiss, but within, say, just a half‑day session, or something like that, would certainly help and would help to give the athlete more confidence to go out into these schools as well. Chairman: Thank you very much. We are most grateful to you.
Memorandum submitted by The British Athletes Commission Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Ms Sue Campbell CBE, Chair, and Mr John Scott, Acting Director, Drug‑Free Sport Directorate, UK Sport, examined. Q366 Chairman: Good morning and welcome. We are delighted to see you. I do not know whether on the previous occasion you came we had occasion to congratulate you on the conclusion of the Honours List, but in any case there is no harm in congratulating you again. Thank you very much indeed. Ms Campbell: Thank you very much. Q367 Chris Bryant: Do you understand why Rio Ferdinand was not escorted from the moment that he knew that he had a test until the moment that the test should have been performed? Mr Scott: The procedure was the procedure that is in agreement between ourselves and the Football Association. The rules that pertained at that point in time, which have obviously been reviewed now through the code review, were those that have been applied over all the tests we have undertaken for football. The notification was given in accordance with those rules and Rio, as an experienced football player, would have known what the rules were. Q368 Chris Bryant: But it seems a bit crazy, does it not, because we have heard from the Winter Olympics that the moment you know that you are going to be tested you may be an hour, not likely to be much longer than that, and somebody stays with you all the way through the award ceremony, whereas, as far as we can see, in the case of Rio Ferdinand we have got the club doctor trying to find him in the changing room, finding him in the changing room and then running around other parts of the building, talking to his driver, a whole series of different events and they cannot find the chap? Mr Scott: As I say, those were the rules that pertained at the time which were negotiated between UK Sport and the Football Association in administering that programme. In the last three months we have had very positive discussions with the Football Association about changing those rules just to make sure that we are code‑compliant, because we now have a code which makes it very clear what that chain of events should be, and that will be one area that will be changed. Chris Bryant: It will be changed? Chairman: Could I just say this so that we can proceed in decent order, namely, I know that Chris wanted to put a question of this kind to the FA, but this is a matter for the FA rather than UK Sport. Secondly, we had a private session with the FA, and I think it is very important indeed for colleagues to distinguish in their minds what we were told in the private session from what took place in the public session, because that is only courteous and fair to the FA. Q369 Chris Bryant: I presume that means I am not allowed to pursue that line of questioning, so I shall move on to something else. Anti‑doping hearings. Different sports have different systems, and some people have argued that there should be exactly the same system for everybody in the country. The FA said earlier this morning in public that they have a system where the football club can provide the support for the player whilst somebody else plays the prosecuting role, whereas that is not available to smaller sports; and we had previous evidence in a different session where people said that the difficulty was one person could be both supported and prosecuted by their own sporting body. What do you think should change, if anything? Ms Campbell: Two things, before I let John give you the more technical answer. First of all, the World Anti‑Doping Code will help us systematise and regulate much more what does happen sport by sport, and clearly we are in the process of beginning to implement that effectively across all sports. Secondly, I think the issue you are raising is a very important one. Clearly we are not in a position to tell sport how to conduct their business. We work in partnership with sports. However, we would like to set up an independent resolution panel which provides those sports which need it with an alternative to actually conducting the hearing themselves. However, it is not our job to impose that. It is, however, our job to ensure that the policy guidelines set down by the World Anti‑Doping Code are applied systematically so that all athletes get a fair hearing. Mr Scott: I think one of the clarifications that needs to be made is that the World Anti‑Doping Code to which all these sports are now subscribing does allow a twin‑track solution. It allows either the establishment of an independent hearing and appeals process that sports can use or the application of the principles of an independent hearing and appeals process within the sport; and this is the route that FIFA and the FA are likely to go down for the very reasons you have just described: they have the resources, they have the experience to do it, but that is not to say their process does not fulfil the absolute requirements of the WADA code principles, it is just that the practice of implementing it will be slightly different. Q370 Chris Bryant: WADA may be changing their rules on out of competition testing for illegal substances: cocaine, marijuana and so on. Do you think those should be prescribed on the list, or not? Mr Scott: I think this is an issue that is of great debate. Our position when this was debated was that the testing for what are called recreation substances was of very questionable value, but in competition there is clearly a risk to your competitors. Some of the recreational drugs can actually act as a masking agent perhaps to other substances, so in competition we would argue there is a relevance for testing for recreational drugs. Outside of that, clearly athletes, like any other member of society, come into contract with these drugs on a regular basis, and I think that is why we have been very encouraged by the programme that the FA, for example, have applied with recreational drugs, which is to do with dealing with the problem, offering advance and guidance. They are looking for therapy for these young people to bring them back into society in a meaningful way. Q371 Chris Bryant: On the issue of supplements and over the counter medicinal drugs, do you think that it is important, or for that matter desirable, that we do move to some kind of international kite‑mark so that it is very clear to people what is usable and not usable? Mr Scott: Supplements is incredibly complex, as I am sure you picked up during this inquiry, which I think has been very helpful because it has thrown a number of these issues on the table. There is not a very quick fix for this, unfortunately, because giving a kite‑mark to the manufacturer of the supplement is not necessarily the answer because quite often it is the manufacturer of the raw material that is used in the production of the supplement which is where the problem lies. So you have got the chain of supply, which is absolutely critical to be assured of that. The biggest problem we have in addressing this is that the size of the market that the supplements represent for high performance sport is relatively small and the costs of instituting that level of ISO accredited process is very, very high, so the likelihood of the industry going with it is very slim, but you are absolutely right that it would have to be done at the international level to be effective. Q372 Derek Wyatt: Can I pick up on the kite‑mark issue? Is there not a way that the UK could do this independently of anybody else whereby, rather than the ISO, they put on a colour‑coding so that green be careful, orange getting dangerous, but red is awful? So that you could do that? Mr Scott: There has been talk about running a test on the products that are on the market. As I say, the difficulty is that you cannot actually verify the purity of one batch to the next batch. This is the problem. So our case has always been that athletes should avoid supplements because the strict liability has to be in the founding principle of any anti‑doping programme. Unless you are going to have that totally integrated supply, manufacture, accredited ISO standards, you are not going to be able to give the kind of guarantee that is required for the athlete with that strict liability clause. Q373 Derek Wyatt: Last week I made some remarks about Michelle Veroken. Could you reassure me that the way in which she was dealt with was correct in the sense that she had had warnings, in other words, you carried out her sacking correctly? Can you reassure us on that? Ms Campbell: I think, Derek, I would want to say that when I came in to carry out the reform the whole reform process is both challenging and, clearly, it is about reforming the organisation and ensuring that whatever decisions are taken are taken in the wider and best interests of the way that organisation operates and runs. Discussions with Michelle were very forthright. I think that we parted company with Michelle, and we have a letter which says that we parted, with mutual consent. We have parted company on that basis and there is a compromise agreement signed by both parties. Q374 Derek Wyatt: Thank you for clearing that issue. I have asked this of other people. Drugs is not new. I did the David Jenkins film in 1988. Before that, certainly on the Tour de France, we had known it for 25 years. Is there a way, do you think, that they can legally snare ‑ snare is perhaps too strong a word - lay the blame also at the coach or make the coach responsible too for the athletes and therefore make the coach and the national body responsible, or do you think that is too difficult and too legally complex. Ms Campbell: I think at this moment the athlete is the person who ultimately is responsible for what is taken into their body. However, I think the point you are making, which is can we do more throughout performance directives and our coaches to ensure that our athletes are properly supported and that the advice they are getting is of the highest standard, yes, I am sure we can. Indeed, as we move forward with the reform programme, one of the things we are going to do is put a great deal more investment into the people around the athlete, whether that is sports scientists, medics, nutritionists, coaches, to ensure that they are of the highest world‑class standard and operating to the highest ethical standards, but right now the liability rests directly with the athlete. Q375 Derek Wyatt: There is some concern that Montgomery and Jones, the American runners, are connected to one coach who seems to take an issue about how far you can push by using supplements. That seems to have been the case before. In Ben Johnson's case it was not just Ben Johnson, it was also those associated with him. We have got the evidence, as it were. Why can we not be stronger, and, if it is not for us to be, why cannot WADA or the IOC make a regulation? Ms Campbell: Again, we in this country do not have a licensing scheme for coaches nationally. Individual governing bodies have licensing schemes. Clearly the case you are outlining, should it be proven, would be a case for withdrawing a coach's licence. I think we are moving over the next few years to a new national coaching certificate which is the first step toward a national licensing programme. That will allow us to take much tougher stance, not only on these kinds of issues, but on issues around child protection and other issues where right now it is quite difficult to withdraw somebody's licence to operate if they do not have a licence in the first place. Q376 Derek Wyatt: How long is the timeframe before we have that here? Ms Campbell: The first 20 sports will be through the National Coaching Certificate in the next couple of years, and we are moving very rapidly to a much more systematic way of tracking coaches; and clearly this whole area of drug abuse is one of a number of major ethical issues we have to ensure are properly enshrouded within the work of a coach, and I think all of us who are working in coach education are committed to making sure coaches are working to the highest ethical standards. Mr Scott: Chairman, there is now a specific reference, as you know, in the World Anti‑Doping Code to the entourage that surrounds an athlete with the ability to prosecute them, with sanctions where the evidence is available, but this requires the athlete to own up to that and give you the evidence, because it has to be evidence‑based, but there is now a process by which coaches, anybody who is supporting athletes who is involved in drugs, can be prosecuted. Q377 Chairman: You are probably better placed to put this question to than anybody else, and in a sense it could be regarded as a philosophical comment, but it has very serious practical implications. On the one hand, one could say that it is unfair on young people who decided that their role in life is participating in sport to impose upon them being a role model, but there are thousands and thousands of people who just want to run, or swim, or row, or play football and that is all they want but, on the other hand, particularly now with the growth of publicity, particularly several television channels and the very large rewards that are available not simply through being paid but through extremely lucrative sponsorship deals with commercial firms. At what point do you think, as it were, climbing up the contestant's track does a person have to accept that she or he is a role‑model and, if that person has to accept that, then there are certain implications with regard to their conduct even in their private lives? Ms Campbell: I think that a very challenging question. I would like to say that I genuinely believe young people even within their own schools who are on the school first‑team become young leaders within their school because of the nature of the school environment. We are very eager that those young people understand that they are role‑models too. In terms of our own work, we have over 500 athletes on our elite funded programme, that means they are being funded through essentially lottery and exchequer funding. I think it is absolutely a duty for those athletes to be involved in some form of community contribution. However, having spent some time talking to Guin in the Athletes Commission, I am very conscious that not very athlete has the confidence to speak at a school assembly or indeed has the inclination to do that, or, at the other extreme, the kind of work that Guin does, which is much more effective than that, which is not just speaking but working with disaffected young people and having a major impact on their life. There are other athletes who would run a million miles from that. I think we can ask them to be role‑models in terms of representing themselves firmly on the sporting arena, but we should not always expect that that means that they go and provide some service back to the community to put them in an area of discomfort, because some of them will not find that work easy to do. I think what we are trying to do is to work with the Athletes Commission to look at making sure that where we are asking athletes to be engaged in proactive work in the community their skills are matched to what we are asking them to do and we are not putting them into difficult positions. I think it is a very important question, and I think that any athlete that is in the public eye has a responsibility to the thousands and millions of young people that follow them and idolise their every step, or every kick, or every throw. Q378 Chairman: They are probably, among young people, young people at school, the most admired people around? Ms Campbell: I think probably they are: the musicians and the modern pop culture. I think those two areas are for many young people their vision of what they would like to be in the world. Q379 Chairman: But there is a difference, is there not? There is what you might call a raffish expectation to being a musician in pop and so on. I do not think that it was widely hoped for that young people who were fans of the Sex Pistols would regard it as appropriate that they should model their lives on the Sex Pistols? Mr Doran: Speak for yourself Q380 Chairman: Rosemary, was it you, or Frank! On the other hand, there is an aspect of going right back to the original Olympic Games, there is this prominence in terms of clean sport, keeping your body in good condition, behaving well. Do you think that it is unfair that a young person trying to get into the Commonwealth Games, the Olympic Games, whatever, should have to accept at a very early stage that the way they behave, both in terms of whether they take drugs to enhance their performance, or the way they behave in their private lives, is a responsibility that they have to accept in the modern world? Ms Campbell: I do not think it is unfair. I think that is part of the stage that they find themselves on. Certainly the evidence we would have is that, where those people take that responsibility and role seriously, they can have a major impact on young people's lives. I think that is one of the real arguments for even greater investment from government into sport and into elite athletes if they can help begin to play their part in shaping a better society. Q381 Chairman: It is also important, is it not, for the sporting authorities to clear away a lot of the dross and the hypocrisy that can affect sport? This Committee in the last Parliament played some role in getting rid of the amateurism in Rugby Union. So there is not only a responsibility obviously on the generally young people who wish, with all credit to them, to be active and they hope to be prominent in sport, but also there is a very strong responsibility on the sporting authorities? Ms Campbell: Absolutely. I think over the last few years everyone has begun to recognise the immense power of sport to affect other key agendas, and the only way it can do that is through the people in sport. It really can impact on education standards, it really can impact on behaviour management, it can impact on crime, we know it has some of those impacts, we are now gathering very good evidence to prove that it can have that impact. So I think all of us in sport, whether we are administrators, coaches or players, have a massive responsibility to represent the best of sport and to help play our part in shaping a more positive future. Q382 Rosemary McKenna: Can I add to that? I agree with you whole‑heartedly but we should not have just realised it over the last few years. When you think of the impact that Brendan Foster had on an entire town, an entire area, an entire community, who responded to that success and the commitment that he made, and that is only one example, we probably should have picked up on this a long time ago. Ms Campbell: Yes. I think we have always understood the power of individuals like that to have an impact on their local communities, or the research that has always been done where a town wins the FA Cup and sees the productivity in the town goes up very quickly, equally the productivity goes down if they lose, but never mind, the reality is that we have always been aware of that impact. What has become more evident in the last few years is that Government policy and Government investment has followed that understanding, and that is what has been a remarkable shift in the last few years. Chairman: Thank you. In terms of the quality of the evidence that we have received, I believe that this is one of the most valuable inquiries that we have carried out. It is now up to us as a committee to see whether we are equal to the quality of the evidence. Thank you very much indeed. |