The National Rugby League is "likely to follow" the Australian Football League and "initially implement a luxury tax framework on its cap on football department spending for next year." In a bid to ensure clubs do not "spend themselves out of existence," Rugby League Central will for the first time "introduce restrictions" on its off-field operations. A committee, made up of four club representatives, "recently met for the first time to discuss how the new cap would work in practice." The process is "only in its formative stages," but most clubs are supportive of the change to ensure they do not "engage in an arms race in their quest for premiership success." NRL officials "will have the benefit of reviewing how their main rivals applied the system before determining ceilings for rugby league" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 2/9).
A leading public health academic employed by the AFL Players' Association to change the "gambling culture endemic" among AFL clubs "has criticised the game's failure at head office level to follow suit." Samantha Thomas, who has worked over the past year with players from Geelong, Gold Coast, Port Adelaide and St. Kilda and "educated footballers as to how they are groomed by betting agencies," said that clubs had "shown more responsibility in addressing problem gambling than the AFL" (SMH, 2/9).
Fine Gael Senator Kieran O'Donnell said that the Irish Rugby Football Union "should make the wearing of protective headgear compulsory for rugby players." O'Donnell "raised the issue in the Seanad in light of a junior cup game being stopped after nine minutes play" when three players suffered concussion injuries. He said, "What I really want is that the IRFU would make the wearing of head gear, particularly for junior cup players, compulsory and particularly for forward players" (RTE, 2/9).
UK Anti-Doping said that it is "disappointed" it will not be used at this summer's World Athletics Championships in London. The contract was "instead given to a German commercial company, Professional Worldwide Controls, which agreed to do the testing for less money." It means samples taken from athletes will be tested in Ghent, Belgium, instead of at the World Anti-Doping Agency laboratory at Kings College London (SKY SPORTS, 2/9).
Austrian police raided the Kazakhstan biathlon team's hotel on the eve of the World Championships "as they investigate if anti-doping rules have been broken." Medical equipment, medical products and mobile phones were among the items seized, "while Austria's anti-doping authority took blood and urine samples" (BBC, 2/9).
