AFL great Gerard Healy taken aim at ASADA over revelations they will continue to drug test players in 2020 without being tested for COVID-19 themselves.
The Age reported that ASADA testers would be entering the Queensland quarantine hub without being tested for the virus, which has posed a threat on the eve of the AFL's resumption.
Should the clubs let the ASADA testers in without being tested, they are breaching the AFL's strict protocols. If they do not let the testers in at all, they are breaching WADA rules, which has caused plenty of confusion and uproar within the community, with one club member saying the system "made no sense".
Healy is frustrated by the government bodies undesire to be tested in such a critical time whilst in the middle of a pandemic that could have severe repercussions on the AFL as a whole.
“The longer we are forced to live with the coronavirus both within the more restricted world of sport and in the general society, the more we are subjected to some bizarrely hypocritical nonsense from governments at all levels,” he told Sportsday.
“In the world of sport there is nothing, and I repeat nothing, more bizarre and downright negligent from a government authority than the behaviour of ASADA.
“The AFL are spending millions of dollars complying with the government’s demands to create isolation hubs to protect players from possible infection.
“Players themselves have accepted onerous living conditions to get the game underway.
“But at the same time, the government body is sending ASADA testing operatives into the hubs to test players for drugs, but they themselves haven’t been tested for coronavirus. It seems bizarre.
“The bottom line is this: In trying to keep the game drug free, they could infect players in the hub and seriously disrupt the season.
“Ironically, the government body that exists to keep the sport clean, could in fact bring it down with its own lack of hygiene.”
