AFL legend Gerard Healy has slammed ASADA after the revelation that the anti-drug body would continue to drug test players inside the Queensland hub without testers undergoing COVID-19 tests themselves.
According to The Age, drug testers are the only exception to the AFL's strict COVID-19 protocols, with the league unable to force ASADA to be tested for coronavirus.
Currently, only those who have been tested and cleared for COVID-19 are permitted any contact with players when at the club, with no one else permitted in the same area of players and staff.
Instead, ASADA officers will wear face masks and sign a declaration stating that they had not been in contact with anyone with the virus or any individual who had recently returned from overseas.
However, the call left Healy, the 1988 Brownlow Medallist, seething as he stated the drug testers could jeopardise the AFL's comeback plans.
"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."
Healy was far from the only AFL figure to be left baffled by the double-standards, with an club official calling the ASADA exemption "farcical".
"It makes no sense," the official told The Age.
"It's farcical but it's not the AFL's fault they are forced to comply. They have put in place all these provisions with the governments all around the country, then ASADA does this."
from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/gerard-healy-slams-hypocritical-asada-non-testing-of-coronavirus-before-entering-qld-hubs/f0412f15-78a0-48ad-9582-1bb57d19ba4c
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