CAÇANDO MARAJÁS...

Para todos aqueles que não estão levando muito à serio o fato de que a Comissão do Congresso Americano para o controle do doping não esteja chegando nos calcanhares das duas ligas profissionais que mais resistem ao mesmo, a NHL e a NBA, ai está um artigo publicado no NYT de ontem, no qual o David Stern se sai com essa perola de cinismo – “Esta é uma área onde a legislação federal não é necessária”. Vamos ver até onde conseguirá protelar as investigações, que demoliram o futebol americano e o beisebol, sem contar com o atletismo, caçando medalhas olímpicas e recordes alcançados desleal e desonrosamente. Ai está a matéria:

Stern Urges Congress Not to Pass Testing Law

Doug Mills/The New York Times

The commissioners and top union officials of the major professional sports leagues testifying at a House hearing on drug testing.

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 28, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern was not about to back down.

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Doug Mills/The New York Times

Donald Fehr, left, the head of the major league players union, with Commissioner Bud Selig.

Summoned to Capitol Hill to discuss whether Congress should legislate drug testing in the major professional sports leagues, Stern took exception Wednesday to lawmakers’ remarks and stood up for his colleagues from the N.F.L., the N.H.L. and Major League Baseball.

“This is an area where federal legislation is not necessary,” Stern told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

The hearing was upstaged by another panel. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Roger Clemens lied when he denied using steroids and human growth hormone at a sworn deposition Feb. 5 and at a hearing Feb. 13.

Wednesday’s hearing produced the rare appearance of the four commissioners sitting side by side with their sport’s union chiefs: Bud Selig sat near Donald Fehr, and Stern was next to Billy Hunter. Then there was the N.F.L.’s Roger Goodell and Gene Upshaw, and the N.H.L.’s Gary Bettman and Paul Kelly.

All tried to convince skeptical lawmakers that their leagues had taken steps to thwart steroid use and were awaiting a dependable way to detect human growth hormone, preferably through a urine test and not a blood test.

“In spite of the fact that they want to pronounce that they have it under control, I still think that it’s not fully under control,” said the subcommittee’s chairman, Representative Bobby Rush, Democrat of Illinois. “And we have to do more.”

Baseball had the most to prove, having implemented a stringent steroids policy only in the past few years. The N.F.L. began addressing the problem two decades ago, and the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. said steroid use was virtually nonexistent in their sports.

All four leagues have toughened their drugs policies since 2005, when many of the same witnesses — including Stern — testified before the same subcommittee. Several bills were introduced in the House and the Senate after that session, but none came close to becoming law.

“Let’s get it right this time,” Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, said. “Let’s go ahead and get something into law that is acceptable. It’s no fun having this hearing every two to three years.”

That was when Stern interrupted, breaching protocol to point out the progress that had been made. “The sports leagues have gotten it right in the intervening three years,” he said.

Representative Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, said: “Mr. Stern, I would suggest that we have not gotten it right enough. If we had gotten it right — if you all had gotten it right — we would not be here again today.”

Blackburn said the leagues should be doing more to stem substance abuse at the grass-roots level, and her comment to the witnesses that “you all have been very well coached” piqued Stern further.

“Enormous progress has been made,” said Stern, who referred to the “voluminous, uncoached record” of material made available to the subcommittee.

The commissioners and the union heads agreed that collective bargaining was the best way to address the drug problem, rather than a law from Congress that would apply to all sports.

Rush disagreed, saying the subcommittee would continue to pursue legislation. But he was not specific. “At the Olympics, they deal with a multitude of sports,” Rush said. “And they seem to come up with a pretty good way of looking at the differences but also the similarities.”

Selig said he met with Fehr and a group of players to discuss the recommendations of George Mitchell’s report. Selig said he hoped the “ongoing” talks produced a more transparent and flexible drug-testing program.

Rush said he was “extremely disappointed” that Vince McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment chairman, declined an invitation to testify. “Steroid abuse in professional wrestling is probably worse than in any professional sport or amateur sport,” Rush said.

A second panel included officials from the United States Olympic Committee, the United States Anti-Doping Agency, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and the N.C.A.A. president Myles Brand.

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