German Players Get Doping Nannies

By: chris | March 16th, 2009

A month back or so Hoffenheim men Andreas Ibertsberger and Christoph Janker got in a spot of trouble for showing up late to a postgame pee test. This was soon after an Italian duo Davide Possanzini and Daniele Mannini were sentenced to one year off the pitch and six months of waxing Sepp Blatter’s bikini line for a similar infraction under similar circumstances. This would lead us to believe Andreas, Christoph and most of the Hoffenheim training staff immediately set off for a nuclear bunker to await the impending bombshell.

But it didn’t come – not from the DFB at least, and not specifically for the two guilty parties. Hoffenheim were only given a slap on the wrist fine (€75k) but the real ‘punishment’ was handed down to all of the players.

Bundesliga club Hoffenheim were fined 75,000 euros ($97,000) on Monday after two players were late for a doping test and the German soccer federation (DFB) announced new measures to avoid such delays happening again. The DFB said it would introduce official doping chaperones from next season so that first and second division players selected for random tests are escorted straight to the doping control room after the final whistle.

It’s not so much the actual nannies which are the problem. It’s the increasing lack of privacy for athletes, the constant eye watching their every move and the overwhelming lack of trust for the masses due to what are merely a few bad eggs in the vast realm of sport (omitting, of course, cycling). And all of this has been coming to a head recently, with athletes showing a greater sense of frustration with constantly having to announce their whereabouts.

WADA president John Fahey opens a European tour on Tuesday and will face questions about the agency’s revamped “whereabouts” rule for out-of-competition testing.

Hardly a day goes by without more athletes or groups complaining about the system, which requires athletes to give three months’ notice of their location for one hour each day — seven days a week, between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. — for testing. The information is registered online and can be updated by e-mail or text message.

The German lads have it easy in this case – the nannies and anti-doping commissions will know precisely where they are at these times – but WADA has made no secret that their strict codes must also adhere to footballers and these “nannies” will certainly only be a start.

One has to wonder if we’re getting to the point where doping testing is more dangerous to the human considerations of athletes than doping is to the integrity of the sport.