After many years in which the Football Association was solely responsible for doping enforcement among Israeli footballers, the Authority for the Prevention of Doping in Sports took the reins last season and will continue to do so this year as well. The goal: to maintain a professional and interest-free inspection. Just before it starts working, and when the topic comes up more than usual, it’s a good time to try to understand how the doping enforcement system in sports works.
First, an introduction: the Authority for the Prevention of Doping in Sports is a body certified by WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency in Sports, A.A.) whose inspectors are certified at a world level. That is, they have undergone international training and can perform tests even in the Olympics and world championships. The meaning is that the test that will be done on the soccer fields in Israel is a global standard test in terms of the summoning procedure, the escort, the urine collection, etc.
The authority is budgeted by the State of Israel and the Olympic Committee, and not by the association, out of the desire to create an agency that is independent of one or another private entity. However, there is an interface with the Football Association, which in the meantime appears to be positive and under full cooperation. The association, for its part, has formulated procedures that are very supportive of drug testing – that is, there is a supervisor on behalf of the association, one of whose duties is to check that there is a drug testing station ready in case there is indeed a test.
Football, it should be noted, is the most scrutinized sport for the simple reason that it is also the most popular. At the beginning of each season, the agency builds an annual plan that is based on risk assessment for each industry – and in football the number of registered players is the highest, the number of audiences is the highest and the number of past cases is the highest. Therefore, the degree of risk is higher than the other industries.
The PA’s inspectors, some of whom are volunteers, are under the supervision of WADA and arrive at the games according to several criteria: lottery, intelligence or improved performance are some of them. They do not come to all the games since the budget given by the state is tiny and does not allow this (in 2016 the budget was 180th largest in the world). Therefore, the discretion is reserved for them and not for people from within football.
The budget, in fact, is minimal and estimated at only about 900 thousand NIS per year – equivalent to the annual salary of senior officials in Israeli football – when the cost of a test is about 2,100 NIS and the Authority performs about 300 tests per year. If that is not enough, since there is no WADA laboratory in Israel, the examiners are obliged to send the tests abroad, an expensive procedure as well, and add to that the analysis which costs about NIS 1,000 per test.
In practice, the procedure looks like this: the inspectors arrive as a surprise and without prior notice, as close as possible to the opening whistle and sometimes even after it since the element of surprise is critical in this case. A warning to an athlete, even the briefest, can result in various manipulations. At the end of the game, the testers inform the selected players that they must accompany them for a drug test. From that moment, the player is not allowed to enter the dressing room and it is his responsibility to reach the pre-established testing station.
When the player arrives at the testing station, there are two ways to perform the test: urine or blood test (faster). If the testers decide to urinate, the player will go to the bathroom with an attendant who will check that the urine has indeed left his body in order to prevent cheating. The urine is then transferred to two vials so that an athlete who is found positive can claim that there was an error in the laboratory and use the other vial.
One of the changes they made in the Authority for the Prevention of Doping in Sports when they took over the responsibility from the football association, is the expansion of the tests also to tests at the player’s home and during the team’s training sessions. The reason: there are certain substances that need to be used for a period of time to achieve the anabolic effect the player desires, and athletes generally know that the chances of them being tested in games are greater. Therefore, all kinds of techniques have been developed to “clean up” a few days before the game – and the goal is to test as close as possible to the time of drug use.
If a player is caught, according to WADA’s code, he has to face legal proceedings in the Anti-Doping Authority’s tribunal. This is an independent court, just like that of the football association, when three judges are assigned to each trial.
In addition, the Authority is working to hold training and information on doping during the upcoming season. The people of the Authority contacted all the groups directly and offered free training in the locker room with a representative on their behalf, but sometimes encountered a lack of cooperation. However, the association is promoting training on the subject and together with the Authority a plan should be formulated that will operate in the next year or two. The purpose of the trainings is to clarify to the athletes ways to avoid prohibited uses. For example, an athlete who has a cold and wants to buy medicine for a cold should know that some medicines contain a prohibited substance.
Bottom line, the drug testing procedure in Israeli sports in general and Israeli football in particular is not particularly complex – but it is done under extremely minimal conditions, with a budget that is the lowest in the world. Perhaps this is the reason why it is difficult to say that the procedure does succeed in completely “cleansing” the industry of drugs. Is it going to change? time will tell.
The reaction of the football association: “The responsibility for conducting the tests and the number of tests was indeed transferred to the Olympic Committee. Until the transition, dozens of drug tests were carried out during a season by the soccer association.”
From the Ministry of Culture and Sports It was reported: “The ministry is in an advanced process to increase the budget to about NIS 2 million. The amount includes the test for all its meanings, a budget that will be directed directly to the agency for testing the use of prohibited substances. In the coming weeks, the budget will reach its destination.”
The Olympic Committee chose not to comment
