Performance Enhancing Drugs Pose a Significant Health Risk for Athletes, Children and Youth : Final Report of the Task Force on the Use of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Football / Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport: 2011
Doping poses a threat to sport worldwide, including Canadian sport. It undermines the principles of open, fair and safe competition. It devalues these principles of sport in general and puts the athlete under unreasonable pressure. It seriously affects the image of sport and poses a serious threat to individual health. Young athletes participating in amateur sport are no exception. At the international, national, and university sport level, the fight against doping must take into account detection and deterrence, prevention, and health and education dimensions.
To that end, and in response to the unprecedented positive results of urine and blood doping control out-of-season testing conducted on CIS football players in the spring and early summer of 2010, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport convened a Task Force of experts to examine the issue of performance-enhancing drug use in football. The Task Force was motivated by a unanimous concern regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs in the sport of tackle football.
The Task Force membership would like to recognize the University of Waterloo and its Athletic Director, Mr. Bob Copeland, for the leadership they have demonstrated in their efforts to better understand how this situation occurred and to develop an action plan to deter the use of performance enhancing substances by future football players and the student-athlete population at large.
The University of Waterloo immediately commissioned a review of their football program in relation to the use of banned substances, led by retired Waterloo Regional Police Service Chief Larry Gravill and University of Waterloo Professor Emerita, Dr. Mary Thompson. Their final report was considered during this Task Force’s deliberations and is referenced in this document. Mr. Copeland also chaired the Ontario University Athletic (OUA) Performance Enhancing Drugs Education Task Force.
Their work has informed and complements the work contained within this report. The Task Force on the Use of Performance Enhancing Drugs in Tackle Football is optimistic that the recommendations contained within this report will influence the development and implementation of innovative doping prevention programs which transcend the student-athlete population from high school through college and university football.
Further recommendations as they relate to intelligence and investigations work will enhance doping control sample collection procedures to target athletes and increase the effectiveness of testing programs. And finally, the Task Force is hopeful that this document will generate positive discussion and dialogue across government departments, including Health Canada and Sport Canada, with all orders of government including provincial and
territorial education ministries, with sport authorities, and corporate Canada, in an effort to discover new ways of educating athletes about the serious health consequences of using performance enhancing substances and to deter and prevent doping.
The Task Force undertook a comprehensive examination and reached consensus on issues in six main areas:
Testing and Analysis, Education, Intelligence, Policy/Sanctions, Partner Engagement and Costs/Funding.
Recommendations for action are presented in each section of this report.
Some key recommendations include:
• Anti-doping and ethical decision making education should be incorporated in the provincial and territorial curriculum to target young athletes in and out of the sport of football. And, health education that focuses on body image and performance enhancing drug use should be included for all students;
• Performance enhancing drug education should be mandatory for coaches, strength and conditioning personnel, and other administrators;
• Significantly increase testing from the current level of 2-3% to 30% of the total number of football players;
• Establish a ‘report doping in sport’ hotline and associated web-based reporting tool supported by an effective communications plan to promote the resource;
• Further consequences, beyond player ineligibility (CADP Sanctions) should be applied to teams and institutions; and
• Development of transparent cost sharing agreements between anti-doping organizations, government, corporate sponsors, institutions, sport organizations and professional football should be considered.
