Why is government regulating sport codes?

After working at CIS for over two years, you’d think I would have learned by now not to be perplexed by the sheer number of pies in which governments of all shapes and sizes have their fingers.

Alas, this has not been the case. I still ask myself with alarming regularity, “Why is government involved in this at all?”

This week it was in reference to the finalisation of the Australian Sport Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) investigation into the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by players from various teams (but mostly the Essendon Bombers) across the AFL. Doping in the AFL has been under scrutiny for a number of years, and now 34 current and former players have been suspended for a minimum of 12 months.

ASADA is a government agency, sitting under the Department of Health. Its role is “to develop a sporting culture in Australia that is free from doping, and where an athlete’s performance is purely dependent on talent, determination, courage and honesty.”

Of course, nowhere in what ASADA does is there a compelling case for why it has to be done by government and funded by the taxpayer, at a cost just shy of $17 million. A strong anti-doping culture is obviously great for sport, the athletes, and the fans, for reasons the ASADA website states. But the primary beneficiary of this is sport itself, and the multi-billion dollar economy that exists around it.  

Sporting codes are essentially collections of clubs who decide they want to play competitive sport in a particular way, with particular rules and guidelines — which could conceivably involve anti-doping regulations, with testing and investigation mechanisms, and fines and/or disaffiliations for players and clubs who do not comply.

In other words, it seems plain there is no reason why this industry cannot self-regulate, with no need for governments or taxpayer dollars or public servants to administer the whole thing. There is no reason why governments need to be involved, other than being seen to provide what is essentially corporate welfare.

Then again, this is a country that still has an egg corporation, a wine marketing body, a meat and livestock agency, a pork agency, a sport fundraising body, a dairy corporation and any number of other government-funded and/or -administered agencies listed here. 

Clearly CIS still has work to do!