Matildas’ Aivi Luik fights doping suspension imposed despite not undergoing a drug test

The Matildas veteran Aivi Luik withdrew herself from Olympics consideration in May after the Italian anti-doping agency suspended her for a breach relating to a painkilling injection two years earlier, despite Luik not having undergone a drug test.

On 24 April the agency, Nado Italia, emailed Luik to say she was being charged with a doping breach and would be suspended for three months.

“Obviously my whole world stopped,” Luik said.

The charge dates back to 2022, when Luik’s Serie A club, Pomigliano, sent her to a specialist for treatment on a back injury. On 29 March that year the doctor gave her an approved painkilling injection that contained a substance prohibited only “in competition” by the World Anti-Doping Code, which in football means if it is administered on the day of a game.

It is understood her club then mistakenly applied to the Italian anti-doping agency for the wrong kind of exemption certificate that it believed would have cleared her to resume playing. Luik sat on the bench for one game after the injection, on 2 April, and did not play.

When the agency rejected the application form, Pomigliano unilaterally stood Luik down for the remaining three games of the season. Her contract ended then and she moved to her current club, Häcken, in Sweden.

It is understood Nado Italia claimed that had Luik been tested for a banned substance after the game where she was an unused substitute, she would have returned a positive result.

Luik pleaded her case before the Italian anti-doping tribunal but was unsuccessful. She is now considering whether to appeal to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Her lawyer, Alexis Schoeb, said the logic of charging Luik was unclear.

“We have some difficulty in following the Italian ani-doping authority,” Schoeb said.

“What’s happened to Aivi is she potentially had the substance [from the pain-killing injection] in her body, because of course she took the substance [as the rules permit], but with no positive test she should never have been prosecuted for this case.

“She was allowed to take this medicine according to the rules and she was also allowed to play even though the substance might still have been in her body.”

The notification came just before the Matildas Olympic squad for Paris 2024 was about to be named. Luik, 39, made the tough call to withdraw her availability.

“I just knew that first of all, as much as I tried, I wouldn’t be able to train at my best and be 100%, which is what is needed from every single athlete in the team,” Luik said in an interview with The Sports Ambassador podcast, released on Wednesday.

“More so than that, I was terrified at the thought of this affecting the team, because we had a really great chance going into that tournament to do well and medal finally.

“I was just so scared of the thought that maybe something like this comes out during the Olympic tournament and what that would do for the girls and the team in general … just how it would take the focus off them and probably negatively affect their performance.

“There was no way I could do that, I had to call up Tony [Gustavsson, the coach] and just pull my name from selection.”

Catherine Ordway is a sports lawyer and anti-doping expert who has advised several bodies internationally on integrity and policy development. She said she was unaware of any case similar to Luik’s and it should send alarm bells to all sports, including professional leagues such as the AFL and NRL.

“The whole scenario is quite odd,” Ordway said. “It doesn’t fit with the purpose of the World Anti-Doping Agency [Wada], the World Anti-Doping Code, which is of course to prevent performance enhancement in sport. This is simply not that scenario.

“A gluco-cortisoid steroid is given to athletes every single day, particularly here in Australia in the professional sports … to enable them to compete at the highest possible level.”

It is understood Wada is reviewing the case.

Wada has previously challenged the decisions of national anti-doping organisations when it believed they had been too lenient on doping breaches. The Luik case is the opposite.

Ordway said Wada would be well within its rights to challenge Luik’s suspension because the precedent it set was “highly problematic”.

“The World Anti-Doping Agency is the safeguard mechanism, the umbrella body, that looks over the top to make sure that its rules are being implemented and are applied appropriately and proportionately in all of the cases around the world,” Ordway said.

“It has the right to appeal. It can easily step in and resolve this in an instant. And I hope that it does that.”

Luik has until the end of this week to decide whether to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try to clear her name or face ending her career with a doping violation against her name.

“The first notion for every athlete is, of course, I’m going to fight this,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind … and then you hear more about it, about how much it costs and what it takes.

“At the end of the day for me I know the people that know me, know that I would never intentionally cheat or commit an anti-doping rule violation … is it one of those where I just suck it up, and I take it, and I live with the fact that there’s always going to be people who don’t agree?

Schoeb said it was an important case for athletes’ rights and their trust in the anti-doping system.

“In a case like the one of Aivi Luik, the only thing which is asked is basically just apply the rules,” he said.

Nado Italia did not respond to a request for comment.