Posturing on drugs code beyond a joke

[Tom]

THE curtains slowly draw back. A powerful spotlight suddenly explodes with light, illuminating a microphone stand in the middle of a bare stage. A tall man runs in from the left, does a little skip and takes the microphone. The applause is instantaneous and loud.

 

"Wow, what an audience," says the man with the mike. "You're electric." He slings his arm around the microphone stand and says: "A funny thing happened on my way here tonight. Fremantle won a football match."

 

And so stand-up comedian Brendon Gale starts his legendary routine. In the front row is Jerry Seinfeld taking notes. He is looking for material for a new show. Dave Hughes is there, too. He is just looking for material.

 

Says Gale: "I bumped into Nathan Buckley the other day. Took an early plea and got a reprimand." Seinfeld is laughing too much to jot down the joke. Hughes thinks that can't be right, Buckley's been out with a hamstring injury.

 

The crowd, though, was now putty in Gale's hands. Nine-to-five Gale is chief executive officer of the AFL Players Association. It is a stressful job ensuring players get $100million to spread among themselves each year. Gale does the stand-up gigs to ease the pressure. This night he moved straight into his signature joke. It is about Buckley again. He is playing in the grand final, is seriously injured in the first quarter and must watch on as his Pies win the premiership. Buckley receives his premiership medal but a drug test after the match proves positive to cannabis.

 

Although he denies taking the drug, the Collingwood skipper is stripped of his medal. Some days later a chef, high as a kite, says he put cannabis in Buckley's soup at a lunch several days before the final. That's too good for Seinfeld to ignore. He jots something down on his pad. "No soup for you."

 

The audience is in stitches as Gale moves quickly to the punch line. Because the AFL has been coerced by the federal Government into complying with the World Anti-Doping Agency code, Buckley's disqualification stands and he cannot have his premiership medal. There is no room to move. It is non-negotiable. Boom, boom.

 

This has been one of Gale's best nights. He was on, really on, as they say in the business. At the back of the club D'Artagnan Demetriou and Athos Anderson leap to their feet. "Brilliant, fantastic," they chorus. Porthos Buckley missed the performance. He had to wait outside with the Three Musketeers' horses. They get skittish in the traffic.

 

A CD of Gale's work this night was cut and sent around the world. It sold more copies than Michael Jackson's new compilation: Lullaby Blues.

 

The director general of WADA, Denis Howman, gets to hear Gale's routine. It was sent to him by the federal Government to make sure he found it as funny as the Australian Sports Commission and Sports Minister Rod Kemp did.

 

Funny? It is ridiculous, said Howman. WADA had never been presented with a scenario so far-fetched. In fact, he told Senator Kemp's department the circumstances were so unlikely, so unfair that WADA would immediately address such a situation if it actually ever eventuated.

 

The WADA code is not there to punish sportsmen caught out in such unlikely circumstances. Sales of Gale's CD are now expected to wane. What was considered funny has now proved to be absurd. Gale's throw-away lines are now just to be thrown away. The Players Association's main argument not to sign up with WADA has no substance.

 

Anyway, the AFL has some funny lines of its own. It will meet before the end of the month to discuss WADA compliance with the federal Government. But Demetriou said the AFL's position had not changed. Compliance with the WADA code is not possible while players who test positive for a third time to illicit drugs like cannabis are banned for life.

 

Under the AFL illicit drug code they are entitled to do a lap of honour on grand final day.

 

An ASC spokesman told The Australian this week non-compliance to the WADA code will cost the AFL more than $500,000 annually and a $3m indigenous coaching scheme would be put at risk.

 

All so some players can feel more secure about taking illegal drugs on their Christmas break.

 

Now, that is a joke. Jot that one down, too, Jerry. It's a zinger.

 

 

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Author:The Australian

Date:June 24, 2005

Source:The Australian

Copyright: © The Australian