Say it ain’t so, Jobe

"Oh, I think damn near everybody's doing it. It ain't going to slow down. It's just like baseball, football, whatever. It's not going to slow down until you legislate (against) it." Jerry Nelson, bull owner, reflects on steroid use in professional bull riding circa. 2007

Gerard Whateley has been appalled by it. And so has the nation, but perhaps not in such verbose vernacular as the number one Black Caviar fancier in the land.

His efforts over 140 characters have been impressive of late. For a generally long-winded professional talker, Whateley sure knows how to pack drama into the limited realm of the ol’ tweetbox.

On February 7, in the aftermath of the now infamous ACC report’s release, he was particularly busy in the micro-blogging Mecca, mainly reporting statements from important types at press conferences, but also dropping this typically melodramatic beauty.

@GerardWhateley: As shocking as it is, it's better to know. Innocence and ignorance have no place now. Actions must now match the stern words #drugsinsport

The sentiment is hard to disagree with.

But what might be considered shocking is that anyone with their head out of the sand really believed Australian sport was some utopian bastion, the final frontier on corruption’s march across the world of athletic endeavour – the proverbial Nazi half-track blitzkrieging its way to the furthest corners of the sporting landscape.

Who exactly are the innocent and ignorant referred to? The fans?

The kids, perhaps. Especially any that may recognise the scent of that sickly sweet blue-grey smoke drifting in tendrils from dad’s jazz cigarette as he watches the cricket, but that know nothing of its illegality.

The kids can still be innocent, sure. But not the majority of real sports fans.

Not the ones who’ve watched Oprah and Lance in the last month.

Not the ones who can name Ben Johnson or Carl Lewis or Linford Christie or any of the other cheats that competed for Olympic gold over 100m in Seoul.

Not the ones who’ve wondered about the general physique of female Chinese swimmers at one time or another.

Not the ones who grew up idolising the Ultimate Warrior.

Not the ones who ever saw Mark McGwire’s Popeye-like forearms.

And nobody thought Maradona was sober in 1994, did they?

“Why weren't there any anti-doping controls in the match with Australia if we had them in all the other games?” the fallen star once said in reference to the heartbreaking World Cup qualifier in Buenos Aires.

“They give you 10 anti-doping controls and only the match that decides whether Argentina will go to the United States or not, there is no anti-doping control…”

“What happened is that to play against Australia we were given a speedy coffee. They put something in the coffee and that's why we ran more.”

Interesting one, that.

Could it be that having Argentina – and not the Socceroos – present at the USA tournament was worth more to world football than maintaining rigorous anti-doping standards?

That belief could certainly be inferred from Maradona’s statements.

It’s probably worth bearing in mind those words did come during a feud with an Argentinian football powerbroker who had just sacked the diminutive dope fiend as national coach, and that he was eventually punted from the tournament for drug use, but it suggests the inky cloud currently hanging over Australian sport has been gathering for quite some time.

Surely Whateley, a man enraptured by horse racing – one of the least ‘clean’ sports ever – can’t have kidded himself into believing Australian sport was free of the presence of corruption, be it monetary or performance enhancing.

In horse racing the spectre of fixing and doping seems very real – and has since Adam was a boy.

And now the sporting public is to be ‘shocked’ by revelations that the underbelly element so closely linked to racketeering and high stakes betting might seek to manipulate players and/or officials and that clubs with bottom lines reliant on consistently high performance might choose to blur the line between ethical and non-ethical in pursuit of enhanced outcomes?

Surely it makes more sense that the better organised sport has become over time, the more interest has been shown by those who organise crime. With professionalism, marketing and publicity has come money, and more money in the pot has made some athletes susceptible to the prospect of even greater riches and, ultimately, impeachable in matters of doping and fixing.

More money in the pot also pays for better toys and more advanced ‘sports science’.

And then the ‘sports science’ becomes competitive and if you’re The Pharmacist you probably make a pretty good living until the G-men come asking questions about your methods and your employer gets all shook up and blows the whistle on itself.

But no-one has been found guilty of anything yet and that should be remembered first and foremost.

It’s been a big week in Australian sport, and it was always going to be – right from the day the ACC diarised the release of its 45 page report into Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport.

Much as it’s been portrayed that way in the past few days, sport hasn’t just broken before our very eyes. Sport is just the same as it has been since scandal first reared up its ugly head at a race track or a ball park or wherever Ground Zero just happened to be.

Maybe it was the 1919 White Sox. Maybe it was earlier than that.

But the public is no hungrier for scandal than it ever was when that fabled line rang out in Chicago- 'Say it ain't so, Joe'.

The media is just more capable of stirring folks to a frenzied state in a matter of minutes. This time, in this case, federal politicians have also jumped on board, but it seems likely they will find plenty of other more pressing concerns before September, so have no fear footy finals will be disrupted.

Some media professionals – and politicians – seem keen to play moral arbiter, too.

Reporting facts is to be encouraged. Sharing an opinion is everyone’s right. But demanding the general public be outraged, and all from the comfort of a swivel chair perched on the moral high ground, is downright irritating.

Thankfully, this column prefers to play cynic than saviour.

On Sunday, the AFL detailed what it knows, or, at least, as much as it wants the footy public to know. One individual and the wider Essendon football club has been linked to use of performance enhancing drugs.

Shortly thereafter @GerardWhateley demanded the NRL follow suit ‘for context to be established’.

What context could that possibly be? Is it that this debate should be framed in terms of ‘bad’ and ‘worse’?

If only to avoid the insufferable ‘my code is better than your code’ debate, hopefully not.

Exactly how many NRL clubs are dragged into the mire, not to mention how many other sports may be implicated, the unfortunate truth remains – people cheat. At sport, at study, at work, at life.

It’s a trait inherent in some individuals – regardless of code or creed – and unless ASADA (or WADA) can develop a test of an individual’s character, they’re pushing shit uphill with a garden rake trying to purge all sporting contests of illegal enhancement or manipulation.

It’s not nice to think naïve footballers may have been doped without their knowledge, but nor is it to consider the same is probably happening to bovine athletes at a rodeo near you.

How can sports fans ever know the buckingest bulls aren’t all full to the horns with steroids to really maximise their bulk and willingness to rage?

And are there any assurances that pro bull riders aren’t getting all jacked up on ketamine right before they strap themselves to the back of an 800kg muscle with a rope tied around its junk?

Given the reported state of sport in this country, it would seem not.