Last week, ex-Sports Minister Richard Caborn MP (the longest serving Sports Minister) used the Letters column of The Times to defend his position on drugs in sport.

There continues to be criticism of the government for not legislating against drugs in sport.

Caborn commented: “The debate is; should sport be responsible for sporting issues, or should politicians and the courts take control? I have long argued for the former…”

Sport remains unique, as a business, in being left to manage many of its own affairs. Drugs is not the only pinch point.

There’s the recent “spying” case in Formula One; does everyone agree that the McLaren team should pay no penalty for receiving confidential and critical data on the Ferrari cars?

There’s the West Ham relegation case (now rolling on into the High Court as the “Tevez affair”), in which the Premier League stuck to the decision of its first Disciplinary Panel, even though the second enquiry stated that they disagreed with the initial verdict.

In both these cases, there was “loadsofmoney” at stake. Both cases continue to attract adverse comment.

Actually, it suits both sport and government to hold the present position. Government has enough hard and controversial decisions to make, everyday, thanks very much, and isn’t looking to extend into further areas of inevitable media/public debate and unpopularity.

Sport wants to mind its own business; it’s happy to take the government’s money, whenever it can, but wants its “independence”. But with “independence” comes responsibility - and the need to manage its business in an effective and transparent manner.

The problem is the cascading spread of big money. When the tradition was set that sport could keep its manage its own affairs, the effect of its decisions was rather less global and costly.

Now, it’s harder to counteract the argument that sport’s administrators tend to take the easy, middle road to steer clear of litigation.

Now, sport has regular big decisions to make - which require big decision makers - has the world of sport got enough of them?