[420 Girl]

SAFA’s shock decision to ban Daniel “Sailor” Tshabalala for two years for using cannabis has astonished many in the game.

“It’s like killing a sardine with a harpoon,” said one commentator this week.

Tshabalala will be nearly 33, and probably unemployable, when his two-year banishment from football is over. The midfielder’s contract at Platinum Stars expired at the end of July and if his appeal is unsuccessful, it will not be renewed.

In effect, Safa’s ended his playing career last week — for smoking a recreational drug used regularly by as many as one in five PSL footballers.

Stars have appealed against the mysteriously heavy sentence, which doubled the maximum one-year ban stipulated in the guidelines of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Khalid Galant, CEO of the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport, was surprised by the Tshabalala verdict. “It’s unusual,” he said.

Galant said Fifa’s anti-doping guidelines do permit two-year bans for cannabis, but only for second offences. For first offences such as Tshabalala’s, Fifa recommends a warning.

The PSL precedents are for much shorter bans. Manqoba Ngwenya (then at Bidvest Wits), was banned for just a month for dagga use four years ago.

More recently, Masixole May, then of Benoni Premier United, and Mbulelo Mabizela of Mamelodi Sundowns both received six-month bans.

In its announcement of Tshabalala’s ban, Safa’s disciplinary committee noted that “that there was no evidence tendered to the committee by the defendant to prove that the cannabis was not intended to enhance performance”.

It is widely accepted that cannabis is not a performance- enhancing drug — so the committee appear to have penalised Tshabalala’s defence team for failing to state the obvious.

Tshabalala and Stars boss Larry Brookstone, who engaged a lawyer and an advocate to defend his player, declined to comment as the matter is sub judice.


The case raises the touchy question of whether recreational and performance-enhancing drugs should be dealt with differently in sport.

There is an argument that counselling and community service would be more pragmatic and sensible tools against dagga abuse than punitive bans, given the pervasive consumption of the drug by PSL players.

Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper Brian Baloyi has estimated that 20% of the league’s players smoke dagga frequently.

Alcohol abuse is even more common, and often at least as harmful to players’ health.

“Performance enhancement is only one of the criteria used to define doping,” says Galant. “But there are still avenues left open to Tshabalala.”

Should the appeal to Safa fail, he will have the option of appealing to the Institute for Drug- Free Sport’s appeal tribunal. His third and final option would be to go to the Court of Arbitration in Sport in Switzerland.

Positive tests for performance-enhancing drugs are a rare occurrence in football.

While several players in Italy, Spain and Holland have been bust for using the steroid nandrolone, no English Premiership player has ever tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug. Sceptics claim this is merely due to the Premiership’s lax testing regime.


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