Tigers to do more on drugs
By Sam Lienert
Foxsports
September 01, 2007
RICHMOND will next season appoint a full-time development officer, whose primary focus will be helping players cope with off-field issues such as illicit drugs.
Tigers president Gary March said the admission by former NRL star Andrew Johns that he had used illicit drugs for a decade during his career had brought the issue into the spotlight.
March said elite sporting clubs had a responsibility to do what they could to support their players, but he did not believe publicly naming them or alerting their clubs to positive tests earlier was the answer.
"With Andrew Johns coming out this week it really highlighted there is a problem in society and particularly in elite sport with drugs,'' March said at a pre-match function ahead of Saturday's MCG meeting with St Kilda.
"I'm one who is not an advocate of the name and shame policy going around, I don't think it does anything to help the cause of the players.
"I think it's really important that football clubs are there to support the players and we've got to look at ways that we can really assist players.
"At our own club we're looking at doing that and some of the key appointments that we're going to be making in the off-season are to increase our welfare areas at our club.
''(We will) put on a full-time development manager to work with the players, mainly in their off-field activities and how they cope with the stresses of being elite AFL footballers.
"When you consider that more than 70 per cent of our list next year will be under the age of 23 and the expectations that are put on them, they're under enormous pressure.''
March said the Tigers would also put more resources into providing their players with access to specialists in clinical psychology and sports psychology.
"I don't think anything's going to be benefited by reducing the three strikes system (for testing positive to illicit drugs) to a two strikes system to name and shame players,'' he said.
''Players do need rehabilitation and the right people to do that are doctors and medical advisers, none of us (football administrators) are specialists.''
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,22345302-23210,00.html
