Collingwood legend Nathan Buckley lashes AFL illicit drugs policy as new roadblock emerges for potential changes

Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley says the AFL’s current illicit drugs policy “enables drug use” and urged immediate change with moves to tighten rules hitting a roadblock after the league reportedly provided a target list of athletes to Sports Integrity Australia for testing in 2024.

The AFL and the AFL Players Association have been engaged in talks over a revised policy for some time but last week’s revelations that 51 players names had been given to SIA, potentially in breach of strict confidentiality, looms as a significant setback.

The AFLPA remains adamant the players voluntarily sign up for the league’s policy, which is more about welfare that catching out drug use.

But Buckley said as both a player and then a coach he’s always been “annoyed’ because the system allows players to get away with drug use.

“This has annoyed me as a leader in the locker room, this has annoyed me as an assistant coach, it annoyed me early days in senior coaching,” Buckley said.

“I think the AFL have created a rod for their own back. I think the program enables illicit drug use rather than dealing with it. I think that’s largely around a marketing ploy about not wanting to be seen as - there’s a welfare element, absolutely, but the clubs are the best place to provide the welfare.

“If I’m a parent with a 17 or 18-year-old that’s going into an AFL environment, I’d rather that the question being asked of my kid going into an AFL environment is that you either take illicit drugs or you’re a professional footballer - you cannot be both.

“But the AFL system enables both, and I think that’s wrong.”

Buckley said there should be greater penalties for players, from clubs, but that dealing with the issue had been taken out of the club’s hands.

The Brownlow medallist said greater “sacrifice” from players was needed when it came to being a professional footballer.

“I think if you make a poor decision then you should be penalised for it. If you make a second poor decision then you should be penalised a little bit greater. And then over time, you’ll work out pretty quickly what’s acceptable in the environment and what’s not,” he told SEN.

“But the AFL have taken that out of the clubs’ hands and it has created what I think is an enabling of poor decisions for professionals. Yes, they’re young men, yes, they’re defining themselves, yes, they’re developing, but they also are professional players being paid a lot of money to do what they do.

“We mollycoddle too much, we enable too much, it should be really cut and dried.

“You can’t do what your mates in financial planning or stockbroking or whatever do, you can’t do that. This is the minimum standard that we’re asking of you.”