The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) said on Wednesday that a South African rugby executive who criticised the Ben Tune drug case decision should disqualify himself from an International Rugby Union anti-doping committee.
It also said that the IRB gives national associations the right to enact their own anti-doping regulations which may vary from international guidelines.
The ARU said it used its discretion in not suspending Tune for two years because the case could have been challenged in an Australian court, and because it was clear that his use of the drug was not to enhance performance.
Dr Ishmael Jakoet, who is also head of the South African Rugby Football Union’s medical department, said Australian authorities acted inappropriately when a tribunal failed to suspend Tune after the Australian test winger admitted taking probenecid, which is banned by the IRB.
”The ARU has admitted that a doping offence was committed. The player must be suspended immediately,” Jakoet said.
But the ARU said on Wednesday that Jakoet’s comments were ”inflammatory, highly inappropriate and highly improper,” in a statement issued on behalf of managing director John O’Neill.
”He has incited members of an IRB committee to pass judgment on Ben Tune without any form of process,” said O’Neill.
”Mr Jakoet clearly must conflict himself out of any review process by the IRB. It is quite extraordinary that someone who has been on this committee for three years would make inflammatory public statements and in doing so, display such a fundamental lack of understanding of the IRB’s anti-doping regulations.”
O’Neill said IRB regulations allow the ARU to make its own decisions on how to deal with anti-doping laws.
”These matters must be dealt with by our own regulations and very importantly, in accordance with our national law,” said O’Neill. ”The IRB regulations permit national unions to have regulations which vary from those of the IRB.”
”The ARU’s anti-doping regulations provide for a two-year ban for a first offence. However our regulations give the tribunal discretion because a mandatory two-year ban in certain circumstances is not sustainable in the Australian legal environment.”
”In the case of Ben Tune, the ARU drug tribunal found the drug was administered for therapeutic use only and it was satisfied it was not used for the purpose of enhancing performance. The tribunal quite rightly exercised its discretion in this case.”
O’Neill said he was surprised by Jakoet’s comments because O’Neill had been assured by South African Rugby that the case was closed.
O’Neill said the ARU had begun gathering documentation on Tune’s case to send to the IRB, which had requested the information following Monday’s decision not to sanction the 43-test veteran.
Tune is scheduled to play on Saturday for the Wallabies against South Africa in Johannesburg. – Sapa-AP