The NFL Players Association is using stall tactics to avoid human growth hormone testing, two influential lawmakers said in a letter sent yesterday to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and union executive director DeMaurice Smith.  Read more after the jump.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s ranking Democrat, said they were frustrated that no progress has been made to implement HGH testing.
“We have been disappointed by the lack of movement on this important issue,” the congressmen wrote. “Every week of football played without a test endangers clean players and sends a message to young athletes that HGH is tolerated at the game’s highest level.”
Issa and Cummings announced after their hour-long, closed-door meeting with Goodell and union officials in Washington earlier this month that both sides had agreed to test players blood for HGH immediately.
Goodell and Jeff Pash, the NFL’s general counsel, later said that HGH testing would commence within 10 days of the meeting. But the NFLPA said hurdles remain before the NFL becomes the first major American sports league to test for HGH.
The NFL and its union agreed in principle to screen players blood for growth hormone in the collective bargaining agreement both sides signed after the league s five-month lockout ended in late July.
The union, however, has expressed concerns about the blood test. If the Players Association does agree to allow screening for HGH, the NFL’s 2010 drug policy will remain in effect.
At the end of our last meeting, the parties were put on notice that absent tangible signs of progress within two weeks, we would need to reconvene the parties, the lawmakers wrote. That deadline is near. Unfortunately, it appears that the players union may be using stall tactics to avoid complying with the collective bargaining agreement.
Issa and Cummings said in the letter they were disappointed that union officials had not accepted an invitation from the United States Anti-Doping Agency to tour its testing facility. The decision not to accept this offer and other signals indicate a lack of urgency on the players part to live up to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement they ratified this summer, the congressmen wrote.
NFLPA officials said the World Anti-Doping Agency refused to share all the information they requested during a three-hour meeting in Montreal on Aug. 24. The union wants data about the athletes who were used to originally set thresholds for positive tests so it can compare that information with a study of its members HGH levels.
Three other lawmakers Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) wrote a letter this week to Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), urging him to hold a hearing on the issue.
Former Jets quarterback Boomer Esiason, now a CBS football analyst and WFAN co-host, recently said that many believe at least 20% of NFL players use HGH. He told the Daily News this week that the union was purposely stalling on the HGH issue as long as they possibly can.
