Melbourne Demons coach Simon Goodwin says he doesn’t have “line of sight” around the allegations of secret illicit drug tests conducted to enable AFL players to avoid detection on game days.
Independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie raised the allegations in parliament on Tuesday, which he said were based on information from former Demons club doctor Zeeshan Arain.
Speaking at his weekly press conference on Wednesday, Goodwin said it was up to the AFL to explain its approach to illicit drugs.
“This policy is an AFL policy, it’s an AFLPA [AFL Players Association] policy and it’s led through a medical model, so you’re asking me questions that I have no line of sight over and it’s something that I’ve never really thought about to be honest.”
Under the AFL’s illicit drugs policy, players can test positive once but the results are not released, under a model that is designed to help them access support outside the public glare.
“All I do is I get the information that I’m required and the policy says that it’s information that should remain confidential,” Goodwin said. “So it’s not unexpected that I don’t have the information because that’s the way the policy is designed.”
Wilkie told parliament on Tuesday Arain had said the AFL wanted players to compete at all costs.
“If there are no illegal drugs in the player’s system they are free to play, and if there are drugs in their system the player is often asked to fake an injury,” Wilkie said.
Goodwin declined to address the allegations in detail.
“This is new information that we’re all sitting on at the moment and will start to digest and we’ve only just got this information as of 12 hours ago,” he said.
“As we work through it today and the AFL provides some more information, I think we’ll be able to build some more clarity about what it looks like moving forward, but I’m not going to speculate on what that will look like until we get all the information.”
Swans chief executive Tom Harley said he had never seen the practices alleged during his time in the game.
“All I can say is that it’s certainly not a practice or behaviour that I’ve have been privy to,” he said.
“The integrity of the game is absolutely paramount to us and our jobs as leaders of the organisation and from a governance point of view is to uphold that absolutely.”