The Canadian Football League Players’ Association (CFLPA) is unhappy with the one-game suspension that was levied against Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ quarterback Zach Collaros.
The union, headed by executive director David Mackie, wants the communication policy for offseason drug testing to be changed. He also indicated the CFL, which did not return 3DownNation’s request for comment, agrees the current system leaves room for improvement.
“What we’ve agreed upon so far is that it’s flawed, and we’ve known it’s flawed for a long time,” Mackie told 3DownNation via telephone on Wednesday. “We need to make sure that there’s a better way, a more secure way, that our members are being contacted, and that they know that they’re being contacted.”
“We want to make sure that guys that aren’t cheating aren’t getting disciplined.”
According to Collaros, he wasn’t aware that he’d missed a phone call, text message, and email from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) until a CFLPA representative informed him as such the following week. Collaros said he generally doesn’t answer calls from unknown numbers and, upon scrolling back on his phone to find the CCES text message, claimed it looked like “everyday spam.”
Collaros explained the situation to the CFLPA representative and offered to be drug tested immediately, though nothing came of it. A week later, thinking the situation had been resolved, Collaros received a letter from the league informing him that he’d been suspended for two games for failing to respond to communication from the CCES within 24 hours, as per league policy.
Mackie, who was hired to head the CFLPA in February following a six-year career at fullback with the B.C. Lions, said the policy has been amended multiple times, most recently in 2023, though the 24-hour timeline has remained consistent.
Mackie declined to state whether or not this situation has happened before as the parameters surrounding drug testing are kept strictly confidential, including how many players are tested each offseason and how many fail to respond to CCES communication within the allotted 24-hour period.
Collaros estimates he’s been drug tested somewhere between seven and ten times over the course of his 14-year CFL career. He also believes other players have blown off messages from the CCES in the past with no negative repercussions.
“In past seasons, I know from talking to people that they’ve missed these calls before and they just kind of move on to the next person and call them,” Collaros told the media from rookie camp. “I’m not sure why it had to get to this point, but it just is what it is.”
After two months of going back and forth – the CCES initially contacted Collaros near the middle of February – the two-game suspension was reduced to one.
“There were some long conversations between each side in terms of extenuating circumstances,” said Mackie. “I think Zach said it multiple times, it’s just an honest mistake. It’s not that he was tampering, it’s not that he was evading. We felt it doesn’t really fall into those typical sanctions and that’s where the one-game came to be.”
“I feel like accepting the one-game was a way to make it less of a distraction and allow for us to be able to move forward, so it’s what we did,” said Collaros. “It’s not a great way to start the season, obviously.”
The two-time CFL Most Outstanding Player offered to play the first game of the season unpaid if it meant avoiding a suspension and having his name dragged through the mud. Clearly, the league wasn’t receptive to that.
“Somebody was pretty adamant about moving forward with this,” he said. “(The damage to my reputation) was really the biggest concern and it will be, I’m sure, moving forward. Although the way it was released (to the media) and all that doesn’t make me look as bad I guess, but it’s still your reputation and the association of a suspension. I’ve never been suspended from anything in my life.”
It remains unclear when the CFL and CFLPA will be able to hash out changes to the policy, though Mackie is hopeful the situation will be remedied.
“Our intent, as the CFLPA, is that if you don’t get back to (the CCES) in 24 hours, it shouldn’t automatically be a two-game (suspension). You want to look into extenuating circumstances – people could be out of country, people could be doing whatever it is,” said Mackie. “We want that changed because we don’t think the contact measures are robust enough to warrant that.”
Collaros has learned that in baseball, drug agencies contact a player’s team and agent if they don’t hear back from them within 24 hours, giving the player a second chance to return correspondence. He said if he’d received a text message from a member of Winnipeg’s communications team informing him of the CCES request, this never would have been a problem.
“I’m a big believer that you’re in control of your own destiny, so I take responsibility for it. It’s my life,” said Collaros. “However, the acknowledgement of a flawed method of contact and then they’re gonna go change it, that doesn’t sit right with me.”
“We need to look at different options,” said Mackie. “We haven’t agreed upon whether it’s an agent, the team doctor, their mom. Nothing has been formally agreed upon but with new leadership on either side with (CFL commissioner) Stewart (Johnston) and myself, we know that this is something that has to be approached immediately and we plan on doing that.”
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