FA ban right but lessons must be learned

14 April 2012

The Football Association set the tone in the battle against recreational drugs 10 years ago when they decided to make counselling and treatment the solution following Paul Merson's confession to a serious cocaine habit.

Merson, then a player with Arsenal, will be forever grateful to the FA for their support.

Merson was target-tested for drugs during rehabilitation - and now Adrian Mutu faces the same testing during his seven-month ban.

But there is a significant difference in the two cases.

Merson owned up to his addiction without prompting. Had Jose Mourinho not ordered the drugs test, Mutu would probably still be taking cocaine. He only admitted taking cocaine after testing positive on 1 October.

Chelsea are not alone in believing the FA have treated the Romanian too leniently. But the FA have a programme of legislation for players taking social drugs and they have adhered to this. On that basis, they have got it right.

Where they feel counselling and rehabilitation is insufficient they can impose sanctions - six months for a first offence, 12 months for a second and permanent suspension for a third.

Mutu's ban reflects the FA's determination to demonstrate they are not soft on social drug taking. What spared him the mandatory two-year ban, under the World Anti-Doping Agency code, was the fact he was tested out of competition.

Had Chelsea had him tested just after a match it might have been a different story.

Perhaps random after-match drug testing, initiated by clubs, is something for the clubs to think about.

Better surely for them to identify drug problems and deal with them before outside agencies become involved. Such a policy at Manchester United may have spared us the Rio Ferdinand farce.

He received an eight-month ban after missing a drugs test last year, claiming he'd forgotten the appointment. Under the WADA code, anyone failing to provide a urine sample, in our out of competition, faces a two-year ban. To have given Mutu a longer ban than Ferdinand would have encouraged future offenders to dodge tests knowing that missing the test was considered less serious than failing the test.

The Mutu issue highlights the problems professional sport faces in adapting to the life-style excesses of modern sportsmen. It has very little to do with leadership, or lack of it, at the FA.

It's hard to sympathise when a £60,000-week footballer with a playboy image squanders his talent, but he's been given a second chance.

On balance the FA have got it just about right.

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David Jones (Footballer)

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FA ban right but lessons must be learned

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