{"id":380079,"date":"2024-03-28T05:51:26","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T06:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=380079"},"modified":"2024-03-28T08:02:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T08:02:59","slug":"former-dees-skipper-denies-any-knowledge-of-drug-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=380079","title":{"rendered":"Former Dees skipper denies any knowledge of drug claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Melbourne<\/a> captain Nathan Jones<\/a> has stated he did not know of any "off-the-books testing" during his time at the club.<\/p>\n

The AFL<\/a> was engulfed in the scandal on Wednesday after Federal MP Andrew Wilkie accused the league of covering up illicit drug use by players<\/a> while addressing parliament.<\/p>\n

Wilkie told parliament that Melbourne players self-reported illicit drug use to former club doctor \ufeffZeeshan Arain before undergoing confidential and off-site illicit drug testing to essentially cover up positive results.<\/p>\n

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\"Nathan<\/p>\n

He also alleged that players who returned a positive result were ruled out of the club's subsequent match with a fictitious injury so as not to draw attention.<\/p>\n

Speaking on LiSTNR's Footy Talk<\/em> podcast, Jones expressed his surprise that players had allegedly been tested in secret \u2014 outside of the AFL's illicit drugs policy.<\/p>\n

Jones played 302 games for the Demons across 16 seasons before retiring at the end of Melbourne's premiership year in 2021.<\/p>\n

He captained the club for six seasons between 2014 and 2019.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"I can only talk from my experience, and I wasn't aware of that level of testing," Jones said.<\/p>\n

"From where I sit and \ufeffthe experiences that I was aware of or what I understood of how that process took place was target testing.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"The players put their hand up to take part in (the illicit drugs policy) and if you had come through positive, you would then be targeted [for testing]."<\/p>\n

"As far as this back door, off-the-books testing, I've never been aware of that.<\/p>\n

\"AFL's<\/p>\n

"This is the first I've understood that was even occurring. I've never heard of that unless obviously it was specifically targeted. I think that was public knowledge.<\/p>\n

"If you had a strike, it was known you would be going through an education process. But there would be an element of target testing to ensure \ufeffthat you were on the right path.<\/p>\n

"This pivots in a different direction because we're trying to avoid any detection and ensure players are clean and ultimately avoid being caught on match day."<\/p>\n

Under the AFL's three strike system, when a player receives one strike for positive illicit drug use, they have the option of joining a medical group.<\/p>\n

According to \ufeff9News' chief football reporter Tom Morris, once a player is in this group it is "almost impossible" to receive a second strike. If the player continues to "tick certain boxes", they understand that they are immune from further strikes and punishment, unless they are caught with illicit drugs in their system on game day.<\/p>\n

Melbourne \ufeffforward Joel Smith was the last player to return a positive match day test result<\/a>, which was made public last October.<\/p>\n

\"Demons<\/p>\n

Jones did not downright deny that the Melbourne Football Club has an illicit drug problem but said the issue was widespread across the league and wider society.<\/p>\n

"I've always been strong in my opinion \u2014 I don't think this is specific to Melbourne, I think this is across the entire competition," he said.<\/p>\n

"Illicit drugs are not a problem that's specific to the AFL, it's a situation that's broadened to sport, society and multiple age demographics."<\/p>\n

The AFL has vowed to work with the AFLPA and players to improve the current illicit drugs policy and system which has stood for 19 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Melbourne captain Nathan Jones has stated he did not know of any "off-the-books testing" during his time at the club. The AFL was engulfed […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":380081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380079"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380088,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380079\/revisions\/380088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/380081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}