At last, the Canadian Football League has shown interest in cleaning the sports of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Many sports analysts say that this is already long overdue. With so many criticisms and appeal to institute a comprehensive anti-doping program, the league announced recently that they have already drafted the policy on steroids.

However, this action of the league is just a first step in the process since this will still be presented to the players association. The CFL have not divulge the specific details of the anti-doping program but it is expected to be debated or ratified once they discuss it in the Collective Bargaining Agreement on June 1. Everybody is hoping that every stakeholder will give in to the steroid testing in the league to make the sport a good example to the young athletes and the fans as well.

The cost of the testing is one of the main reasons why the CFL have not instituted an anti-doping program. But with the popularity of anabolic steroids use in almost all sports particularly in football, it is already time for the league to adopt one. Besides, the CFL is only professional league that doesn’t have a comprehensive anti-doping program.

Christiane Ayotte of IOC Anti-Doping Laboratory in Quebec said to the VancouverSun about his concern about the current policy of the league. “Don’t tell me it will bankrupt the league. I will not believe it. Yes, this is something that appears expensive. Whatever it costs, it has to be in place. You have a responsibility toward not only (CFL) athletes but our young athletes developing in university and college. This is the main concern to me,” said Ayotte.

Since the league have not spoken about the particulars of the proposed steroid policy, there are some speculations that it may not be tough enough to catch cheating players. To clean the sport with players on steroids, the league should adopt unannounced in and out of competition tests at regular intervals. This is to ensure that all players who are into performance enhancing substances will be caught.

According to Marg McGregor, CEO of Canadian Interuniversity Sport, the CFL have taken the issue seriously and the CIS is optimistic that the new steroid policy will be an effective one. CIS is one of the organizations that really want a strict anti-doping policy since most of their athletes plays in the CFL after college. Although they have a similar problem with the professional league about the funding. The CIS has a good anti-doping program but the problem is they were only able to test some of the athletes because of lack of funding. “There are 10,000 CIS athletes. On average, about 300 are being tested each year. That’s a fairly small sample,” added McGregor.

Ayotte also share the same sentiment with McGregor. “In my humble opinion there should be an increase in university and college sport testing to become comparable with the NCAA,” said Ayotte. He believed that the number of tests should be dramatically increased to be more effective. The Waterloo incident is an eye-opener for most regulatory agencies like the CIS. Right now, the case of the Waterloo football player who was caught with several anabolic steroids at his home is being heard in court. On the other hand, the result of the steroid tests conducted on all the football players will be released next week.

The Canadian Football League must set an example to the young athletes. Implementing a comprehensive anti-doping policy will make every game worthy to watch since you know that all players are playing fairly and squarely.

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