Sportsmen/women face severe disciplinary action for using banned drugs

By Lal Gunesekera

Sportsmen and women taking banned substances without prior medical approval will face severe consequences, including facing bans for life or stipulated periods and drugs should be limited to medically justified situations.

This was one of the comments made by Dr. Seevali Jayawickreme of the Sports Medicine Unit of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports at a workshop on banned drugs jointly organised by the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) and the Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association (SLSRFA) at the SLRFU headquarter’s last week.

Dr. Jayawickreme said that taking drugs to enhance the chances of winning is contradictory to fair play and called for both ‘out of competition’ and ‘in competition’ checks to be carried out on sportsmen and women to detect usage of banned drugs.

He also urged the authorities to introduce regular updates that could prevent gullible persons from falling prey to harmful substances in future, while implementing strict punishment for those found guilty. He also highlighted the long-term adverse effects banned substances can have on the users.

President of the SLRFU, Priyantha Ekanayake, called for regular awareness programmes to be conducted by qualified medical personnel on the subject with a view of preventing ignorant players from falling victim to the malaise.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SLRFU, Dilroy Fernando, making a presentation stressed the importance of all stakeholders of the game playing an active role in carrying out awareness programmes on banned substances and noted that players, officials, sponsors and even the media has a vital role in educating the younger generation on the use of banned drugs and consequences of using them and the resultant disciplinary action to be taken on those found guilty.

President of the SLSRFA, Hemantha Prematilleke, thanked the SLRFU for taking the initiative in organising seminars of this nature and stressed the necessity for the schools to work together with the SLRFU in having more informative workshops to educate the masters-in-charge, coaches and players to make them more aware of all aspects of rugby.