A report into Australia’s anti-doping watchdog has revealed it did not conduct drug tests in two football codes for four months during the 2023-24 off-season after negotiations with the sports’ governing bodies.
The review of Sport Integrity Australia by the Australian National Audit Office also showed that cycling was the sport about which most doping intelligence was received, followed by rugby league, athletics and the AFL.
The review covered the first four years of Sport Integrity Australia’s existence.
Formed in 2020 as the successor to the former Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, the federal government agency’s testing regime and investigations are mostly kept behind closed doors.
The newly released report offers a rare glimpse into its activities and relationships with the country’s richest sports, which engage SIA through a user-pays system under which they cover some of the costs of testing in exchange for a say in how many tests are carried out.
It reveals the AFL provided SIA with a target list of 51 footballers to be tested in 2023-24.
It also cites “intelligence relating to sophisticated blood and erythropoietin (also known as EPO) doping in Australian sport and cocaine culture among athlete cohorts”.
Melbourne’s Joel Smith was suspended for four years last October for anti-doping violations including possession and trafficking of cocaine.Credit: AFL Photos
The review concluded that testing met or exceeded planned levels on the football codes and cricket, but that it did not take place in Australian rules and rugby union for significant periods during the 2023-24 off-season and pre-season.
“SIA did not undertake anti-doping sample collection from 26 August 2023 until 1 March 2024 for rugby union, and from 7 October 2023 until 19 February 2024 for Australian football [men’s competition],” the report said.
“The plan for Australian football did not include out-of-competition testing for the AFL men’s competition in the off-season or a significant component of the 2024 AFL men’s pre-season, and was not fully consistent with MLAs [minimum levels of analysis].”
Reference was also made to off-season testing for players in rugby league, which was to exclude most of October and November 2023 under a sample collection plan.
“SIA advised the ANAO in August 2024 that, even if not on the plan, it maintains the authority to conduct out-of-competition testing during the off-season. SIA collected 87 samples from 85 rugby league athletes between 1 November 2023 and 29 February 2024,” the report said.
Shayna Jack was initially banned for four years but had the sanction halved after appealing.Credit: Paul Harris
It added that “with the exception of the ARLC [Australian Rugby League Commission], standing deeds of offer with NSOs [national sports organisations] representing user pays sports require SIA to conduct year-round testing.”
The scrutiny of SIA laid bare the ability of the major sports to negotiate the number of tests and types of samples to be taken by the watchdog.
This was in contrast to how testing was arranged for the government-funded or Olympic sports, which did not have a say in allocation or distribution of anti-doping tests.
According to the report, SIA maintained that user-pay sports did not direct SIA on which athletes to test and that was at the sole discretion of the agency.
But of 51 players the AFL named for target testing, 50 had samples collected. The AFL did not include information on the reason for identifying those players.
SIA has had a series of high-profile and controversial cases before it in recent years. They have included investigations into swimmer Shayna Jack, who served a two-year suspension after testing positive to ligandrol in 2019, and middle distance runner Peter Bol, who was eventually cleared after recording a so-called false positive in 2023.
Melbourne AFL utility Joel Smith was last October handed a four-year ban for anti-doping violations including possession and trafficking of cocaine.
The report into SIA’s anti-doping management said it had begun 38 investigations between July 1 2021 and June 30 2024 and 210 intelligence reports were received about sports for that period, from tip-offs, law enforcement or other sources.
Of them, 21 were related to cycling, 16 to rugby league, 15 to athletics and 13 to the AFL.
Rugby league players were also the most tested athletes among major Australian professional sports, with 718 samples collected in 2023-24 including 498 out-of-competition. It’s understood those numbers include testing in affiliate state leagues.
There were 333 tests by SIA in soccer, 316 in Australian football, 246 in rugby union and 123 on cricketers and 78 in the National Basketball League.
The figures do not include the codes’ own testing for illicit drugs.
The numbers for Olympic sports were lower, but they are often supplemented by the testing regimes of their world governing bodies.
SIA collected 6531 blood and urine samples during 2023-24, at a total cost of $5.7 million – an average of $869 per sample.
The auditor-general concluded that there were deficiencies in anti-doping investigation practices as well as with meeting regulatory responsibilities with testing in the six sports who partially covered the costs.
SIA said it had already begun implementing recommendations contained in the audit and was “confident in the quality of our anti-doping program”.
“The scope of the report covered the first four years of SIA’s operations (1 July 2021 to 30 June 2024), as such, a number of the matters raised in the ANAO audit had already been self-identified with implementation underway,” it said.
“SIA remains fully compliant with WADA including through the most recent code compliance process. Any recommendations will only serve to help us on a path of continual improvement.”
