What a kerfuffle!
UK Sport, which oversees anti-doping in the United Kingdom, wants to introduce a system under which a selected group of 30 footballers will be liable for testing five times a year, on any day and at any location, including their homes and holiday accommodation.
But Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), said he felt the provisions envisaged by UK Sport were excessive.
"We feel that to invade the privacy of a player's home would be a step too far," Taylor said.
"If we complain about anything to do with drug-testing then people think we might have something to hide, but football's record is extremely good and there has been a virtual absence of any performance-enhancing drugs, and that goes back decades."
Really?
In this post, which is one of our twice monthly Flashback posts, we assess the validity of football's self-satisfaction with the alleged non-utilisation of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs).
We print two separate historical posts, inevitably with some crossover, in an attempt to demonstrate the realities with respect to PESs usage in football.
It is our proposition that PESs are very very widely used in football and we are able to back up our statement through the application of statistical analysis of match data over many years.
For example, it is easy to demonstrate when certain varieties of PESs are administered at Half Time or to determine when drug usage is utilised over a window of high importance matches.
The key area pharmaceutically, and it should be remembered that the majority of leading clubs have close links with this industry sector either via sponsorship, ownership or through their medical teams, is the development of masking substances to disguise the PESs being taken.
Furthermore, as the second post demonstrates, while football is still coming to terms with an historical PESs abuse that has existed for decades, the far more contemporary issue of Gene Doping is of greater concern.
Gordon Taylor is correct on one point.
Why should footballers have to submit to such testing?
The inquiries should be directed at the core of the issue rather than at the periphery.
Numerous Italian footballers, for example, took the pills or injections offered them as it was necessary to compete in a highly competitive environment.
There was/is systemic, hierarchical and peer group pressure to perform to one's maximum.
If UK Sport and WADA wish to target PESs abuse, target the abusers not the abused.
Remember cortisone?
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DRUGS IN FOOTBALL
There are certain stages of the season where the illegal usage of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) becomes more prevalent. It is evident that the late season is a key period to develop competitive advantage and, sure enough, PESs are more prevalent from February onwards.
Previous posts (including http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2006/12/doped-up-spanish-giants.html) have touched on this area but we intend to expand our overview in this post.
The key PESs is undoubtedly Erythropoietin (EPO). Having been utilised in cycling for years, the pharmaceutical companies have developed a whole range of masking substances to prevent detection. EPO is particularly sought after as it can improve the performance of a team over a considerable time window. We have developed extensive modelling to determine when a club is on EPO but the market-makers are on top of this potential edge nowadays and such information is in the price.
The authorities throughout Europe are aware of this issue - my favourite response remains that of La Liga authorities who test for EPO in urine when it may only be detected via blood samples!
Various types of amphetamine provide a shorter term buzz. Benzedrine, Methedrine and Dexedrine are typical of this class and some teams use amphetamines at half-time which can be particularly rewarding on a trading level if you are ahead of the market.
Other substances eg narcotic analgesics allow athletes to play on through an injury (frequently creating further damage).
Nandrolone has been the most easy PESs for the authorities to detect of late although we believe that successful masking agents are now available.
Another point that is worthy of note. Illegal drug programmes tend to move with management teams from club to club.
We incorporate all of the above into our trading analysis but, occasionally, there is substance abuse that falls outside published science. In season 2001/02, Bayer Leverkusen were a team possessed. They reached the final of the Champions League where they narrowly lost to the beautiful Zidane - they had lost the final of the DFB-Pokal (German Cup) four days earlier putting out a reserve XI. Bayer were also pipped to the Bundesliga title by one point. A pretty successful season all in all for a team the size of Blackburn. The following year, Bayer escaped relegation only in a fixed game on the last day of the campaign and finished bottom of their Champions League second-phase group with zero points.
Analytically, we have never seen such a reversal from one season to the next. Leverkusen are owned by Bayer pharmaceutical company which is of no relevance whatsoever... obviously.
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GENE DOPING IS NOT A COUNTRY AND WESTERN SINGER
Nietzsche's Superman - the modern marketed paradigm of hyperreal humanity.
The Scene...
Nothing less than the leadership of the Free World (sic) is at stake.
Winning is Everything.
When the skewed incentives create such a competitive and nationalistic template, one may only be certain of one thing.
Cheating...
Firstly, a prediction.
Dietrological are trading massively on a private Olympic Games market in Asia.
Our position is a Buy.
We are of the opinion that a much higher number of World Records will be broken at these Olympics than is usually the case.
And, you know what, the reason that we think that this is a solid position (as well as being a one-parameter market!) is that Cheating is the Core Competitive Advantage in the modern Olympiad.
The cumulative impact of the incentives - personal, cultural, economic, political and national - are marked in Beijing.
Additionally, the incentives are in tandem - unlike, say, when the Black Power protests by Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City extravaganza demonstrated the real feelings about living in the world's "only remaining primitive society".
The unipolar world is about to become bipolar.
Measured at purchasing power parity (PPP), Goldman Sachs reckon the Chinese will economically overtake the US of A this very year. In reality, 2028 is the projected date for the changeover in No 1 seed in the global economy - this second date is based on the modern concepts of mathematics and statistics, rather than the sleight of hand of a street magician used by proponents of PPP.
So, they're up for it.
Big style.
The People's Republic of China versus Team USA.
How spectacular do you wish for your sport to be?
Anyway.
Back to Cheating.
Herbert Marcuse: "...play is precisely a breaking off from labour and a recuperation for labour".
The Circularity of Play in the Political Economy is equivalent to the Circularity of Cheating in the 2008 Olympiad.
When the prize is so great on so many levels, Cheating will define the games.
This Cheating will, literally, exist on two different strata - Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs) and Gene Doping.
Lets take these two in turn.
PESs - Remember Euro 2008? Remember how much energy Turkey and Russia possessed in a run of their respective games? Remember how tired the Russians looked in their abject Semi Final defeat to the Spanish? Remember how the Turks never stopped running, even in between matches?
PESs are now commonplace in all sports - the information is "in the price", so to speak. As an example of this, count how many of those super-energetic Turkish and Russian footballers have secured moves to the G14(18) teams following their overperformance at Euro 2008. We'll save you the trouble - the answer is zero. No top tier club makes an evaluation based on PESs.
The competitive advantage has turned away from the usage of erythropoietin (EPO), perfluorocarbon (PFC), blood doping, steroids, amphetamines etc, and to the development of masking substances instead.
Originally, the monitoring regimes were so lax that maskers weren't necessary. Indeed, a cynic might argue that the global regulation covering the illegal utilisation of PESs is suitably time-lagged to allow the next wave of 'innovation' to be initiated prior to more cumbersome regulations being developed for earlier forms of Creative Cheating.
But, in spite of this, PESs are secondary in impact to the Next Big Thing.
Gene Doping will distort outcomes at the Beijing Olympics.
Do you need to know the science?
Okay, here's a bit...
This physiological advancement (sic) is based on introducing extra copies of particular genes into the body (transgenes). EPO is the prime transgene target. It was the biotechnology industry that introduced EPO in the late-eighties and an EPO transgene would not be detectable using any technique.
The Perfect Crime.
Repoxygen is already freely available in the sorts of locations where you can purchase guns and things. Other Big Pharma advances include IGF-1 (which is muscle specific - think javelin or tennis), vascular endothelial, Switching Genes that act as an on/off device, advanced endorphins for pain control etc etc.
The specificity of these designer doping genes allows particular products to be aimed at particular sports. One can even game the detection regime via the use of Switching Genes.
Now, when the leadership of the Free World is at stake, surely the unknown health risks to a few athletes are not worth worrying about?
Cortisone? Who cares?
And, in a parallel pharma-verse, notice how quickly Vioxx has disappeared from the hyperreality?
As The Economist correctly states, the decision on Gene Doping should be based on safety and fairness.
However, the right wing libertarians then proceed by totally ignoring the former (profit over people) while producing illogical, unscientific and selective arguments in support of the latter.
The Economist think that Gene Doping is a Good Thing.
Over their column inches, even the name changes.
Gene Doping, with its nightmare-state images of Frankenstein-athletes...
...becomes Gene Therapy, with an altogether more comfortable-couch-with-caring-counsellor sort of image.
If we are going to be objecting to the hunger merchants of the next millennium imposing genetically modified foods on us, we must be equally assertive in our objection to genetically modified athletes.
The Economist uses the case of Eero Mantyranta to promote their case. This Finnish athlete was fortunate. His body produced large amounts of EPO entirely naturally. He won a couple of Olympic Golds in those bizarre sports that involve snow and rifles and forests and things.
So what?
Sport is about natural ability.
That is the point.
Fairness.
No corruption or advantage through PESs, Gene Doping, control of match officials or whatever.
The list of negatives to The Economists' arguments are extensive, too extensive for my working day.
But here are a few points worthy of input (in random order):
* If natural ability is to be artificially equalised using Gene Doping then some of the most beautiful things that we have ever witnessed will never happen again.
Maradona, Tiger Woods, Don Bradman, Gary Sobers would all have just merged into the crowd of heightened mediocrity. The incentives would make it imperative that all athletes partake in Gene Doping - what chance in outrunning or outjumping an android without becoming one yourself?
* In the end, it will still probably be natural ability that provides some edge but not before Big Pharma has made extensive profits out of gullible and desperate athletes equalising their gene intake. The profits of the pharmaceutical industry are one of the foundational bases of this ruse.
* Big Pharma will also game the sector. Generic Gene Doping will be available off-the-shelf, in a manner of speaking, for the poorer participants. The G8(12) will have proprietary Gene Doping established with particular pharmaceutical giants - Team Pfizer USA. This will help maintain the most psychopathic nations at the top of the Medal Table.
* Longer-term health risk is the biggest issue. Corners will be cut in pursuit of glory. The real impacts may only become evident in future decades when the athletes are well away from the lens of the spectacle. And the athletes take on the Total Risk ie Life. The profiteers simply count the cash...
* Numerous unnecessary industries will benefit from the introduction of Gene Doping - advertisers, sponsors, the media, merchandisers, sportswear firms, bookmakers etc etc etc.
For example, lets look at bookmaking.
Natural ability is very annoying to bookmakers.
As we hopefully demonstrated in our recent post at http://footballisfixed.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-bookmakers-hate-olympics.html, the layers do not appreciate competitions where the incentive to win is considerably greater than the incentive to cheat.
Gene Doping will solve this.
And then some...
As only the leading nations will be able to take advantage of Gene Doping, and as the leading nations have very mature betting industries, the inevitable linking of the Dopers and the Layers will produce internally controlled betting markets on currently dangerous spectacles such as the Olympic Games.
Take the 100 metres.
This is a flagship event.
Of the top ten competitors in the betting markets, 3 are Jamaican, 3 are Trinidadian, 1 is from the Bahamas and the other three are from Team Pfizer.
In a world where the bookmaking and pharmaceutical industries cosied up to one another for mutual advantage, and oodles of insider trading opportunites - all industries love those off-balance sheet little grey and black market earners - the possibilities of gaming the 100 metres outcome for proprietary trading advantage is obvious.
For example, inside knowledge of the use of Switching Genes would be valuable both with respect to historical 'form' and real-time hyperrealities in the race.
The worst two industries, apart from all the others, are pharmaceuticals and bookmaking, and their collusion is not an edifying sight.
The Economist dresses up the whole argument regarding Gene Doping on the basis of fairness. Apparently, it is unfair that the likes of Eero Mantyranta have natural ability providing natural advantage. It would be much fairer, claim a tongue-in-cheeked Economist leader, if rich countries could develop an unnatural advantage for themselves through drugs and doping.
"Why should others be denied the chance to remedy ...[their] deficiency?" argues The Economist.
Aside from all the above (and more), the winners of the prizes should be the individuals who have natural talents, have selected the correct sports in which to demonstrate those talents, have trained while their peers partied and who avoid the competitive advantages bestowed by PESs, Gene Doping or linking to the bookmaking industry.
Exactly the sort of individuals who will not be winning Gold Medals in Beijing, in fact...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
