AFL 2013

[Rob]

Rob, what's your view on the luxury tax idea that's been floated?

Don't mind it actually. Although it's going to be incredibly hard to define what expenditure is taxed and what's not. It's easy to do it with player salaries (as other leagues do) but when you talk about football department spending it can get very hazy as to what that is.

[NRLandMore]

Sounds just like the WADA code. Bear in mind that 'recreational' drugs are on the banned list, and match day positive tests immediately put you in breach of that code. The AFL's policy just adds to that by introducing an out of competition testing regime. AFAIK no other football code has an out of competition policy. Which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but not having one means a lot less positive tests.

Assuming of course that it's in use.

They do make public the number of tests done. In terms of transparency, it's as much as you'd expect short of naming the players.

All players who test positive should be named in the public.

[Simmo79]

So Essendon then... Someone smart give me a rundown because BF is going nuts

[yob]

So Essendon then... Someone smart give me a rundown because BF is going nuts

They caught wind that their dietary suppliments may be dodgy.

[yob]

Reports are now replacing the word "supplements" with "stimulants."

Must've dropped too many red bulls before their games.

[Simmo79]

So like caffeine pills or something? Could this be one of those things that sounds really bad until we get all the facts and then we realise that it's not good but not that big a deal anyway?

[Simmo79]

Okay it's not caffeine pills. And the bloke at the centre of it has been linked to Geelong, Gold Coast Suns and possibly Manly as well.

f**k me, what a day for scandals. Basketball anyone? They have kulcha...

edit: and Bill Simmons has set PEDs as the agenda for the NFL's off-season. This is an excellent article:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/890 ... d-question

[Simmo79]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/more-ne ... 6217676548

ROBINSON is the first to admit he does things differently. The ferocity of his program caused casualties early on, but he said that was inevitable.

"At the end of the day when you do accelerate people and you do push them you find weaknesses. In the first four weeks we wanted to find the weaknesses and once we found them we could strengthen them," he said.

"They've already put size on and that was something we did at Geelong where some of those guys put on seven kilos in seven weeks and it was functional mass."

Hindsight is 20/20 but bloody hell that should have been suspect at the time. A kilo of muscle per week is basically impossible without hormonal supplements. This will be a substantial problem for everyone involved and will suck the life out of the backpages. Scandals are fun when they're limited to one club (eg/ Storm and Carlton rorts) but when they reveal systemic cheating it's just depressing.

[yob]

I don't believe it's systemic, it's just a case of one or two guys job shifting between clubs.

Now the latest:

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/d ... 2dwmb.html

"peptides"
.

[yob]

Oh and, like, best off season ever.

[Rob]

The story is they may have been using this:

http://www.mrsupplement.com.au/ghrp6

Which is certainly banned under the WADA code.

[Rob]

They do make public the number of tests done. In terms of transparency, it's as much as you'd expect short of naming the players.

All players who test positive should be named in the public.

That's all well and good to make that call from the cheap seats, but keep in mind the AFL's illicit drugs policy is discretionary. If the AFLPA isn't happy with it, they can tell the AFL to go f**k themselves and the policy is essentially in the rubbish bin.

So if you got your way, you'd consigning the policy to the history books. Nice work.

[yob]

Get your tickets to the next match against Hawthorn. Roid Rage anyone?

[yob]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/afl ... 6570861343

Players "injected" with "unknown substances."

Supplements means popping a centrum and having protein powder. Injections means East German lady boys.

[nobleoz]

Seems like Demetriou was spot on with his criticism of "sport scientists" last year