Transcript
PROFESSOR BARRY HOULIHAN
So there are a number of arguments which would say that there is an inconsistency underpinning the anti-doping regulations. I should say despite all that I still think that we need to defend the anti-doping code and the work that WADA does and it comes back to this notion, this slippery vague notion of the spirit of sport, that sport is not just entertainment there is something distinctive about it. It does have a set of qualities and a sort of moral underpinning that makes it different from simple entertainment. It is the sort of examples that James gave about would you want to encourage members of your family to takes these risks, but would we want to consume sport as spectators if we knew that it was routinely underpinned by doping. I think one just marginal comment to this is that although many families would withdraw their children or discourage their children from participating in sport if it involved taking drugs there are plenty of examples of parents doing the exact opposite. I remember reading a paper some years ago about the number of parents who came to, this was in the United States, to doctors asking for their children to be usually male children to be given human growth hormones because they were going to be six foot two but if they were going to continue to be good at basketball they needed to be six foot six or six foot eight and there are a number of examples of parents who are quite willing to take that risk on behalf of their children, or getting their children to take those risks. It’s a highly controversial area but I think when it comes down to what sport is, we do have to come back to this awkward notion of the spirit of sport, that sport is something special and we need to defend it and that is what the code is trying to do and what WADA is trying to do.
MARTIN FOSTER
Barry, I think that’s an outstanding articulation of some of the controversial pros of legalising doping that underpin very nicely with the spirit of sport and the moral side of things and why actually I think we’re all saying no but it’s a very great point there that people could probably touch upon and talk about.
Daniel, do you have something to add there?
DR DANIEL READ
Just to echo really what James and Barry have said already that I also kind of disagree with the argument that it should be legalised and I think very much building on what they’ve already said. When we look at sports like American football right now in the US that are going through a concussion crisis, and we see adults actively pulling their children out of that sport. For a lot of sports legalising doping could spell the end of it in terms of the commercial and popular success because once a sport does become associated with a stigma of doping, so James’ example of his daughter there is a real potential that is not often mentioned in this discussion that everyone thinks that legalising doping in a sport would be, well everyone’s going to turn and watch it because we’ll see the most fantastic athletes, but for a number of sports it could actually have the reverse effect in the long term and see their ultimate demise because parents don’t want their children involved in these sports and that point often gets lost but I think it very nicely rounds into what James and Barry have said.
PROFESSOR BARRY HOULIHAN
From the point of view of those organisations who are making huge sums of money out of spot, what is the unique selling point of sport and I think there are a number of points here. One is that it’s youthful, it’s exciting but it’s also seen as relatively clean. Dan’s exactly right, you then put at risk this golden industry which is generating so much money for broadcasting companies and for international sport federations and the IOC. So, there are a number of commercial as well as moral arguments for trying to strengthen and support the work of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
PROFESSOR JAMES SKINNER
And this is where the tension lies as well, I think because the commercial underpinnings of professional sport in many cases leads to sport organisations not wanting to be transparent about doping. They don’t want to embrace the code fully or they don’t want to embrace anti-doping practices. They want to protect the brand. And sometimes what that means is the challenges for WADA as a consequence become complex because organisations see the commercial value of sport that it is bringing in and if you tarnish that brand as Dan alluded to then your broadcasting numbers can fall, your attendance numbers may drop, so your revenue suffers as a consequence.
There’s numerous examples of sporting organisations failure to recognise or acknowledge the extent perhaps to what doping was going on within their sports for commercial reasons.