Essendon Football Club Drama

[chalbilto]

Interesting article today on Matt Clarke on the AFL website. He's a VFL player banned for 2 years for taking a banned substance, which was some kind of energy/ protein supplement given to him by a teammate before a match. He knew full well he was going to be drug tested that day but took with an assurance from his team mate that it was perfectly legal ( which it turns out it wasn't). If he can cop two years for that, how can any Essendon player systematically injected over a period of time with a substance that is deemed to be banned cop any less? ASADA have set the precedent, they must be consistent or risk a lawsuit from Matt Clarke, who's initial suspension was 9 months but extended to 24 on appeal from ASADA! For one pretty minor indiscretion you would've thought. I recommend reading the article it's quite a sad story.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-07-0...r-on-road-back

If the ruling comes out and deems the players guilty of taking a banned substance, then a precedent has been set, and that would mean that those players concerned would incur a 24 months suspension/ban. Interesting times coming up to say the least.

[alt_mattr]

It's tough to go soft while still adhering to WADA.

Tougher than letting someone get away with a racist comment when you have a zero-tolerance to racism policy?

[wolftone57]

The drug everyone is talking about the Essendon players taking is not supposedly performance enhancing but who knows as it has not been tested on humans. This drug is banned because it has never been leaglised for use in humans in any country in the world.

Anti-obesity drug AOD9604 is still a trial drug and therefore illegal to be taken by humans in any form until clinical trials have been completed and the drug is passed for human use by the Therapeutic goods Authority. This is not going to happen in a hurry. I know because I was involved in an effort to get a range of drugs passed for HIV in the early '90's and it took almost 10 years for some of them and in them meantime many people died.

The Essendon Football Club and its players have broken ASADA and WADA rules by using this drug as it is automatically banned as it has never been approved for human usage. But I think there is a more important issue here and that is player welfare. The players were literally being used as Guinea Pigs or trial patents for the drug. This is illegal at the least and certainly if any player was to exhibit complications from the drug then they could sue the club and all the officials who mandated this drug. Beware! Drugs that have not gone through Clinical Trial Processes and have not been approved for human use are very often toxic. There is a reason the TGA and similar bodies in other countries do not pass these drugs and that is either the side effects or that they don't work.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

To summarise

First line defence:
Essendon denies that anyone took AOD, despite the consent forms they had players sign. Even Watson didn?t admit to taking the stuff, he merely said he believed he may have.

Second line defence:
Essendon have claimed that there was a note from ASADA that said AOD wasn?t banned, while simultaneously denying they took it. Unfortunately no-one can find a copy nor remember what it actually said or who it was from.

Note:
The whole AOD thing is also somewhat of a red herring anyway, Essendon have seized upon it because they really don?t want to debate the legality of some of the other substances they were invoiced for and which are absolutely forbidden.

Third Line Defence:
It was rogue elements, we didn?t realise what they were doing, and as soon as we suspected something was up we ?self-reported? . . . leaving aside the timing of the self report, this was the players best hope of escaping serious penalty. 6 months seems to be the standard penalty for unknowing ingestion.

Obfuscation masquerading as Defences:

Uncertainty about exactly which classification AOD was banned under, classic nit picking. It was banned. This defence was assisted by Fat Andy when he and Evans were working out a soft landing for the Bombers, a soft landing Hird may have jeopardised.

The "ACC said it wasn?t banned defence". Actually the ACC statement to that fact was on page 14 of their report on drugs in sport. And appears to be an abridgement of the full AUD964 statement on page 39. If it wasn?t the ACC it?d be called a typo. In any case for the purposes of banning athletes, The ACC?s opinion is irrelevant (Gerard Whately?s is even more so).

There is no evidence that AOD is performance enhancing, leaving aside the question ?In that case why were you taking it?? Of course the statement is irrelevant because it was banned.
In response to revelations about the meeting in 2011 where Clothier warned Hird not to use peptides wasn?t an official one on one ?Don?t use Peptides Warning? meeting so it doesn?t count.

Then whole Fat Andy told us we were in trouble before we ?self reported? argument is also irrelevant. If it were true then yes Fat Andy would be in trouble, however when Hird leaked this not only did he pick a fight with Fat Andy he also punctured the Essendon players ?self-report? defence.

The AFLPA?s ?Information not available to players? defence will not help the players, if amateur Olympic athletes can and do the research why can?t professional football players get off their X-boxes and do the same research?

Catch 22
Even if there proves to be insufficient evidence of drug cheating, and without positive tests or admissions this is a distinct possibility, the AFL can always crack Essendon?s egg with their ?Bringing the Game into Disrepute? hammer, should they so wish.

History
While Bomber fans are proud of having won the most premierships. Essendon also hold the record for the number of times they having been penalised (with the loss of draft picks) for breaching the salary cap. Should anyone be surprised they tried cheating this way too?

Final Observations:
Much as I find it distasteful, I suspect that Evans and Fat Andy had been negotiating a soft landing for the players. Whether the brinkmanship of James Hird, Essendon?s "Dear Leader" and ?Great Successor? jeopardises this is less certain, but it?d be ironic if it forces the AFL to draw a clear line in the sand on this issue, rather than producing another ambiguous ?negotiated settlement? like the Demon Tankathon.

[ShockOfHair]

Thanks for that wrapup R'n'R.
A complicated affair, but random things have caught my attention:

The "phone call" - I'm wondering if this gets down to a Clintonesque parsing of the meaning of the word 'discussed'. Did Andy D say something that was understood as a 'tipoff'? Or, Chinese whispers style, which Hird somehow interpreted as a tipoff? Maybe not likely, but possible. We're all curious about the phone call.

Caro Wilson v Hird - Apart from the amusement value at the reactions to Caro, her view that there's a Hird camp that's been leaking against Evans and the AFL gets some support with the resignation of the media person overnight, which gives a little more credence to Caro's notion that Hird is deeply implicated and should take responsibility.

Hird - if the worst is proved true surely one of the greatest falls from grace in Australian sporting life.

Players - I'm quite sympathetic, less so the playing group leaders, but if you're a 20yo kid and the club doctor says 'take this' you're not going to refuse. The AFl and the AFLPA need to create some sort of players' health and medical rights code that they can invoke and which clubs must observe.

[R-1]

New line of defence: Hawthorn, Collingwood and West Coast did it too:

No Cookies | Herald Sun

[hot potato]

Just happy I don't follow The Bombers... Would give me a migraine , and I wouldn't know what to take for it .
HP

[dimelb]

New line of defence: Hawthorn, Collingwood and West Coast did it too:

No Cookies | Herald Sun

I don't know whether to be grateful or offended that we were left out!

[ScottH]

Just happy I don't follow The Bombers... Would give me a migraine , and I wouldn't know what to take for it .
HP

I'm sure the Bombers would have something to cure you.

[Mug Punter]

Hird - if the worst is proved true surely one of the greatest falls from grace in Australian sporting life.

Smug, arrogant and self-entitled, the Golden Child's chickens are coming home to roost. Add that obnoxious new chair (Evans seemed like a thoroughly decent man) and there is so little to like about that club.

Interesting to see that the online poll in The Age is running at 76% believing Robinson in what is basically a question of trust.

Cannot wait for the truth to come out

[bodgie]

I had to laugh when Mark McVeigh described James Hird as a great delegator.

[CureTheSane]

To me, Mark McVeigh smacked of someone who was pissed that this was all coming out.
More angry at the messenger and trying to lessen the impact with his general and un-impacting comments.

[ShockOfHair]

To me, Mark McVeigh smacked of someone who was pissed that this was all coming out.
More angry at the messenger and trying to lessen the impact with his general and un-impacting comments.

On the other hand, the supplements could explain why Mark McVeigh still has his hair.

[CureTheSane]

Yeah, McVeigh was a pretty silly person to have on the panel.
Maybe I misread his anger.
Maybe it was directed towards those who insisted that he was contractually obligated to be there...

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Yeah, McVeigh was a pretty silly person to have on the panel.
Maybe I misread his anger.
Maybe it was directed towards those who insisted that he was contractually obligated to be there...

Aren't we employing him, to look after some academy kids?