So it's unanimous.

All three North American drug-testing labs accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency are now on the record as saying they couldn't work with the CFL, given its weak stance on performance-enhancing drugs.

Dr. Anthony Butch, head of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in Los Angeles, weighed in Friday, saying the league tried recently to take its drug-testing program to his facility.

“Our lab was indirectly contacted regarding the testing of samples for the CFL,” Butch told the Winnipeg Sun. “I declined the offer to work with them based on their current policies.”

Butch's comments echo those of Dr. Daniel Eichner, head of the Sports Medicine and Research Testing Laboratory in Salt Lake City (SMRTL).

Eichner, while not confirming the CFL tried to hire his lab, said on Thursday there was “no chance that SMRTL would ever engage in a testing program where there was no punishment for a first-time offence,” adding no WADA-approved lab could do so “in good conscience.”

The reason the CFL is looking south of the border for a lab: it fired the one that tested its player samples for four years, the world-renowned and WADA-accredited lab in Quebec, after the head of that lab went public with her longstanding criticism of the league's toothless drug policy.

So that's Strike 3, and Canadian football remains without a functioning drug-testing program, going on six weeks.

In some ways, Butch's comments are a moot point.

The CFL has been facing an all-out blitz from the front lines of the fight against doping for two months now, and it's taken more of a pounding than any Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback ever did.

Player agent Darren Gill and University of Manitoba Bisons football coach Brian Dobie were first off the line, after five university players were caught using steroids or other banned and dangerous performance-enhancing drugs at the pre-draft combine, three of them subsequently drafted.

The cheating players – none appealed the findings or their four-year bans at the amateur level – knew they could get away with one, because in the CFL they'd be treated with the kid gloves used on all first-time offenders.

When Dr. Christiane Ayotte, head of the Quebec lab, spoke out, saying she could no longer stand to see her institution turn out positive tests with no resulting sanctions, the league stood no chance.

Its front line of protection -- the confidentiality clause it signed with the administrator of its drug program, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport – collapsed because it lacked the back-blocking of credibility.

Additional hits from the head of WADA itself and now the WADA labs down south are tantamount to piling on.

But the only flags thrown here must be directed to the league for first, its reluctance to acknowledge the issue, and second, its reaction of cutting ties with the best thing its flawed drug program had going for it: the CCES.

This is the organization that conducted all the testing for the Vancouver Olympics and is conducting the testing for Toronto's Pan-Am Games, a not-for-profit member of the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations.

Nobody administers drug testing better. And like the CFL, it's made in Canada.

The Winnipeg Sun has learned the CFL has hooked up with International Doping Tests and Management (IDTM), a for-profit organization based in Sweden but with offices around the world, in an effort to piece together its program.

IDTM has vast, worldwide experience in amateur sport. Yet it couldn't convince the best labs in the world to take on its new client.

We're told it may actually administer the CFL's program for a lesser fee than the CCES did. We're also reminded you usually get what you pay for.

Our favourite football league, battered, bruised and backed up to its own goal line, has one chance to get out of this mess.

As it huddles with its players union, negotiating the future health and safety of its most valued employees, it must come up with the right play.

Something bolder and more forward-thinking than any of the other pro leagues.

As Eichner in Salt Lake City said this week: “There's no reason why they couldn't do something that's amazing.”

The flags have been picked up, the play blown back in.

It's your move, CFL.

paul.friesen@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @friesensunmedia