The GAA will abandon drug testing unless the Irish Sports Council improves the testing procedures. Concerns about the current procedures were highlighted further by four football managers yesterday, and backed by GAA president Sean McCague.
Dublin's Tommy Lyons and Galway's John O'Mahony were particularly clear about the concerns of their players. Both managers called on the Sports Council to start again from scratch with more considerate and confidential methods, while McCague has already demanded that the Council make the necessary adjustments.
Supporting the views were Kildare's Mick O'Dwyer and Derry's Eamon Coleman and adjustments now appear inevitable if the GAA is to persist with the current testing procedures.
"Since the testing has started again this year we have let the Sports Council know in no uncertain terms where we stand on it," said McCague. "If they can't get it right then they would have no gripe in us pulling out until they do.
"And they know what they have to do to get it right, and we are demanding that's the way it should be. They are the ones who have undertaken to do it, so the onus is on them to do it right."
Lyons outlined the main areas for improvement, and believes that the drug testing is now the main concern for inter-county players: "When you wrestle away all the media hype about the current issues with players, I would say drug testing is the one issue players right now would go to war on. They feel they're being treated like professionals in a very amateur game.
"I don't believe there is a drug problem in the GAA. I do accept that this had to come in on the back of Government guidelines and funding for sport, but we need more communications.
"From the feedback I've got from talking to some of the managers over the last couple of weeks about the testing, shambles would be the word to describe it. I trust Sean McCague and Liam Mulvihill have got stuck into the Sports Council over the last two weeks, because as an association we need to be very protective of our players."
Among the problems this year was the NFL final in Clones last month, when players were taken through a crowded corridor outside the dressing room for testing. There were also considerable delays last Sunday in Navan as the Louth-Longford players waited for a dehydrated player to give a sample.
"I think the lack of confidentially is the big concern," said McCague. "The fact that players were not able to give a sample for maybe two hours after a game was not a problem that was anticipated. Teams were right to be annoyed but that's a provision that will have to be taken on by county committee officers also.
"That's an organisational issue, but the matter of getting the testing procedures right and sticking to the guidelines that they've laid down, that has still got to be done."
Sufficient education is still a worry for O'Mahony: "I was at a seminar in Croke Park a few weeks ago and the initial feeling was shock. We saw slides of all these famous athletes that are branded cheats, and to equate that with the guy who takes the wrong cough medicine or whatever is wrong.
"I've been involved with the GAA for a long time now and I would be amazed if there was any systematic doping. But this would really come to a head if a player should be caught by mistake after taking something for a cold.
"It is a big issue out there among the players and it would be terrible to see a player branded a cheat because of this. There aren't too many cheats playing Gaelic football as far as I'm concerned."
Out-of-competition testing, where the Sports Council's mobile unit could now appear at any county training session, was also a concern for O'Mahony: "It means we can't be taking in anyone from the local county championship because they wouldn't have got the details. As it is we've had to tell every player that if he gets a cold, he can't do anything until he talks to the team doctor."
Lyons was also concerned about the lack of the necessary education: "We've put a lot of effort in making the Dublin players aware. And we've put together a party pack of stuff they can take when they do have the flu, but in Ireland mammy is always the first doctor in the house. We've all grown up with that.
"That's okay for an older player gone out of the family home, but most panels have eight or 10 twenty-year-olds. So if I were in the GAA headquarters I would be telling the Sports Council that they're gone until they can come back and prove that they can do it right. Start again from scratch and do it efficiently. Then you show players that you care about them.
"Right now I think the Sports Council are just paying us lip-service, and I'd be taking out the big bottle for them. They have no interest in the GAA, they're thinking about every sport in Ireland. But our passion is the GAA, and I would tell them to go jump in the lake until such time as they can prove to us that they can give confidentiality in the testing."
