AFL clubs demand answers on secret drug tests: Goodwin

All 18 clubs will demand clarity from the AFL on its illicit drugs policy following allegations of secret testing enabling some players to dodge detection, Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin says.

The Demons are at the centre of explosive allegations - made by their former club president and ex-club doctor turned whistleblower - that players had faked injuries and pulled out of games to avoid match-day drug testing.

Goodwin insisted the allegations were “news to me” and said he had “no line of sight” on the alleged clandestine tests facilitated by the league.

“Every club’s interested now to find out more information,” Goodwin told reporters on Wednesday.

“I’m sure that’s a given right across the competition and we’re one of those (clubs).

“Every person in clubland would want answers and want understanding of how the policy works, and is it a success. We’re no different to that.

“We’ve been through a bit (as a club) but this is an AFL policy and we’ll be asking the appropriate questions and getting the answers that we need.”

Goodwin’s response to the claims came as a another former AFL club doctor said every club had an “arrangement” with the AFL about covering up positive drug tests and the father drug suspended Demon Joel Smith said the AFL was a “toxic” workplace..

On Tuesday night, Federal MP Andrew Wilkie told parliament of the allegations made by former Melbourne club doctor Zeeshan Arain, ex-club president Glen Bartlett and Shaun Smith, father of Demons player Joel Smith.

Joel Smith has been provisionally suspended since October, when he was notified of a positive cocaine test following the Demons’ win over Hawthorn on August 20.

Arain, who spent eight years as Melbourne’s head doctor, was sacked by the Demons in October 2020 after raising questions about the club’s culture.

“I don’t have a thought about the ex-doctor or where that sits,” Goodwin said.

“This is new information and this (illicit drugs policy) has been in place for a long time.

“This is an AFL policy. It’s got nothing to do with our doctor, our ex-club doctor - this is an AFL-wide thing.”

Dr Peter Larkins, who worked at Adelaide and Geelong, said on Wednesday the practice of covering up positive drug tests was widespread.

“This was a system deliberately put in place to assist players to get off the system if they were caught up in societal drug use,” Larkins told Nova 100 Melbourne.

“And so the club doctor and the AFL’s medical director were the only two people aware of this system when a player tested positive and a player could self report, so this is how this story is unfolding.

“A player who was worried they were gonna test positive could go to me as the club doctor and say, ‘Oh gee, look, I’ve been at a big party Pete on Thursday night and you know what, I might have taken things. You know, what am I going to do?’

“As your doctor, I’m trying to help you get off the drugs, so then I could also see if you’re tested. But where it really got messy was then the club doctor was allowed to prevent the player from playing. They’d be managed or they’d pull a hamstring at training.

“Every club doctor had that arrangement with the AFL — all 18 clubs.”

The AFL Doctors Association released a statement saying the Illicit Drug Policy (IDP) was “based on a medical model” and was “not meant to be punitive”.

“The club doctors’ prime responsibility is, and always will be, the health and wellbeing of the athlete,” President, Dr Barry Rigby

“The suggestion that this unique privilege has been somehow manipulated is simply not true. Such comments are disappointing, and represent a distortion of a process aimed at supporting player welfare.

“The AFL Doctors Association supports the AFL’s Illicit Drugs Policy, which aims to deter use while providing avenues for education and treatment. This approach aligns with our ethos of empathy and support.“

Shaun Smith said he wouldn’t allow his son to play AFL if he was draft age again.

“If my son was 17 right at the moment, I’d be saying you’re not going to AFL footy because obviously there’s a bad culture there,” Smith said.

“The AFL need to fix that problem ASAP because it’s not just the player affected. It affects the family, it affects friends, partners - everyone.”

Leading AFL commentator Gerard Whateley said the bombshell news had confirmed what once had long been suspected by journalists.

“If throughout the years you have harboured suspicions that drug bans were masqueraded as hamstring injuries – you were right,” Gerard Whateley said on SEN.

“As a beat reporter back in the day this was the story you could never prove. High profile player, untimely hamstring injury, lingered longer than might have been anticipated. Suspicions were on every street corner.”

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon on Wednesday confirmed urine tests have been part of the illicit drugs policy “for some time”.

But Dillon sidestepped questions about players being instructed by their clubs to fake injuries if they tested positive for illicit substances, consistently falling back on the line that it was “private medical information”.

Goodwin said the allegations would not make him second-guess the information he receives from club doctors, insisting he has “never questioned anything” about players being pulled out of games.

“When you start to digest the information that you get given, you take it on face value,” Goodwin said.

“This is a process that the AFL, the AFLPA and the club doctors put together from a confidentiality perspective, so to have no line of sight is not unusual.

“But I’ve got enormous trust in our doctor, in terms of them being able to do their job, so I’m not going to question how they go about their business.”

Essendon coach Brad Scott, who served as the AFL’s general manager of football before joining the Bombers in September 2022, said he did not know of players pulling out of games to avoid match-day drug testing.

“There is a world’s best practice which involves a level of confidentiality and I can unequivocally say in my time in football I have never been alerted to the fact that a player has tested positive to an illicit substance, unless it’s out in the public domain,” Scott said.

“I’m not part of that process and to my knowledge no senior coach is.”

Sydney chief executive Tom Harley and coach John Longmire also denied knowledge of the alleged secret tests on Wednesday.