CHEMICAL SCOURGE DEMANDS KNOCK ON DOOR THAT SPREADS ALARM

In any list of likes and dislikes in my life, the United States would
definitely be in the first column. Vacationing there for the past eight
years, fascination with the extremes that the country offers tends to
intensify rather than diminish. There is still a mystique about the US, that
probably comes from watching television shows from faraway locations as I
grew up. In our shrinking world, America may now seem only a short flight
away; to a boy who holidayed in Filey, I can assure you, the Land of the
Free was as exotic as the moon is today.

There was something glamorous about the images I associated with the
different cities: Los Angeles was sunshine, New York was danger, Dallas was
beautiful, unreal women. Okay, so I was a boy of 18 when I watched 'Dallas',
but America has had an increasing influence over our lives with the arrival
there of masses of immigrants. In little more than 100 years, the world
order has changed dramatically. From a country that was sparsely inhabited
to indisputably the most powerful nation on earth, where America goes, we
invariably follow. Examples of American influence stare us in the face every
day: freaky talk shows, film releases, 'Friends', fantastic salaries for
athletes. A definitive list would fill up this column for the rest of the
year, but we seem quite happy with this state of affairs. In fact, we would
probably be better off integrating with the dollar rather than the euro.

One advantage of this sycophantic transatlantic obsession is that we should
be able to spot trouble before it arrives. Thus, it is time to heed warnings
about the use of drugs by athletes - the US has had a problem for years. A
regular stream of top-class sportsmen have been involved in drugs, and we
need to beware that the trend does not hop across the water.

Emmanuel Petit said last week that there is already a widespread problem in
English football. Playing with Arsenal, Petit will be aware that there is a
history at that club of players abusing their bodies with substances that
are neither natural nor helpful to a footballer. Tony Adams and Paul Merson
have anmitted to drug abuse while with the north London club in the early 1990s.

Arsenal were the epitome of responsible employers in ensuring that they
received treatment and support at a critical time. Whether a reserve player
who was more expendable would receive the same commitment is unclear, though
I would hope so. The fact is that to find one player addicted to a class-A
drug is bad luck. To find two means stern preventative measures need to be
intoduced.

Scaremongering is an accusation that is justifiably directed at the media,
and I believe that there is no significant problem in British football so
far, but it is foolish to think that it cannot become one.

Who could have predicted 10 years ago that we would be able to watch live
sport on TV almost 20 hours a day, or that there would be players in
Scotland earning more than UKP1m a year? Is it inconceivable, then, that a
small minority of players will follow a lifestyle similar to their American
counterparts?

As our footballers become richer and more constrained by a media that
scrutinises their every move, on and off the field, some may think that they
can find escape by chemicals.

It is time the Sports Council, SPL, SPFA and SFL (you are just leaving
acronym land) got together to draw up and implement the most radical
drugs-testing programme in Europe - a mandatory, random testing that every
player and employee of a football club must sign up to if they wish to work
in the industry.

There is, in this era of over-the-top political correctness, a civil-rights
issue to be addressed, but it is important that football sends out a clear
message that drugs will not be tolerated in our game. This programme must
reach into the new youth initiative league, from as early as under-13,
although this may have to take the form of oral rather than the urine or
blood samples that should be employed at senior levels.

Performance-enhancing drugs are certainly uncommon in Scotland, and it is
not known how widespread is the use of recreational drugs among our young
players. The threat of a knock on the door on any given morning, heralding a
random test on an individual player would, it is hoped, give even the most
stupid young man reason to think twice before putting his career at risk.

Underpinning these tests would be a support programme for anyone who has a
problem, or was found to test positive.

Football needs not only to be clean from drugs, but to be seen to be clean
from a scourge that is affecting far too many British families. Football,
for once, needs to be proactive rather than reactive.