Photo / 123rf
By Ben Rumsby of the Telegraph
A powerful painkiller behind harrowing stories of addiction in football and rugby is on the brink of being banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Wada's executive committee is expected to rubber-stamp a recommendation that tramadol be added to its prohibited list when it meets on Friday.
The ban would come two months after former Liverpool and England goalkeeper Chris Kirkland revealed he had been so addicted to the opioid that he came close to taking his life. In 2019, former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams said that "tramadol is the new drug of choice" among rugby league players ahead of a stint as president of the Rugby Football League.
The revelation by Adams, who said his Sporting Chance clinic had helped 400 rugby league players wean themselves off prescription painkillers since 2011, was followed by rugby union players lifting the lid on a culture of prescription drug use - particularly of tramadol.
The drug, which can cause nausea, drowsiness and a loss of concentration, has been on Wada's monitoring programme for a decade and there has been mounting pressure for it to be added to the prohibited list, including from UK Anti-Doping.
It was banned by cycling's governing body, the UCI, in 2019. This summer, Nairo Quintana was retrospectively stripped of sixth place at the Tour de France after tramadol was found in two of his blood samples.
He denies taking it and this month lodged an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.Tramadol is prohibited by the UCI only in competition. A Wada ban would not prevent it being taken out of competition. However, it would stop tramadol being used to allow an injured player to play through the pain, something a therapeutic use exemption would unlikely be granted for.
Kirkland, whose career was plagued by back problems, revealed this summer that he had at one stage been taking 2,500 milligrams of tramadol a day, more than six times the maximum recommended. He said his addiction to painkillers had deepened his anxiety to the extent that he suffered hallucinations and was hyperventilating, almost leading to him taking his life.
Kirkland said there were other players taking such medication who had contacted him, and some were scared to go public due to fears it would cost them their place in their teams.
Any Wada ban would come into force from Jan 1.
Wada refused to comment on plans to add tramadol to the prohibited list, but said in a statement: "The list is reviewed annually in consultation with scientific, medical and anti-doping experts to ensure it reflects current medical and scientific evidence and doping practices."Tramadol does feature on the monitoring programme for 2022.
"The monitoring programme includes substances that are not on the prohibited list, but that Wada wishes to monitor in order to detect patterns of misuse in sport."
Ukad also declined to comment, but had said following the UCI ban: "The UCI has banned tramadol over concerns about a series of negative health effects if taken without correct medical guidance. As stated on the UCI website, these include nausea, drowsiness and a loss of concentration, increasing the risk of race crashes.
"It can also cause users to become gradually more dependent on the substance, resulting in the possibility of developing an addiction."