WADA will appeal AFL anti-doping tribunal's Essendon decision

I am not a great fan of Hird but he will remain coach of Essendon so long as he retains the confidence of the players on this matter and that is the way it should be. The players and Hird know more about what happened than you or I and I don't believe the players would be supporting Hird if they believed much that has been said about him. Hird's future as a league coach will depend on his future performance.

But Hird is still there - the coach of any other team in any other code would have stood aside 2 years ago to allow everyone to move on. I don't want sports stars drugged with whatever stuff because its wrong. No doubt WADA are pursuing this because it has not been dealt with properly. Once the managment of EFC are removed who allowed this to happen under thier watch I think people can move on

There are some people who believe they can make themselves bigger by pulling others down. Essendon were certainly at fault but this business has gone on far too long and I believe is causing permanent damage to the AFL as well as Essendon. Supporters of the AFL should not be happy with the damage that is being done and surely the AFL will ensure that any future investigation is handled better and in a more timely manner. The club and the players have been punished enough and I believe WADA's action will fail but it will destroy Essendon's season for the third year in a row.

Everyone but the EFC faithful think it's good WADA are doing this. Any chance Hird will be bought to account if he doesn't do the honourable thing and resign?

Earlier in this drama I likened the actions of ASADA to Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. It has now gone beyond this and a better analogy would be Inspector Javert in Les Miserables. If WADA fails in this after following ASADA's urging, is there any way McDevitt can be brought to account if he doesn't do the honourable thing and resign?

Bwuce, bwuce bwuce, it must be so hard living in the riverina churning inside about the AFL and the kids playing AFL and the Leagues club closing and clubs having to rely on kiwis and tongans etc to get by, because not enough locals are playing Tell us more how about the big bad AFL bwuce, what have they done to you bwuce ?.

Area 51? i hope so. I've been there and its an interesting place. That is to say the fence about 50 miles from the base was interesting enough

Mate no way. People still don't get it, this is bigger than the AFL and Australia.

Another fabulous contribution from Conchie. I don't expect you to understand - its hard to be objective living with the Stockholm syndrome you poor bugger.

Well, actually, That is factually incorrect. The CAS put the names on their website. Not sure that this wouldn't be in breach of their code. It certainly wasn't WADA or ASADA that made the names public.

If Hird had gone I think this might have gone away - but the way EFC has handled this whole saga has allowed the matter to snowball. And now Hird is saying there are records - this is a very interesting matter and no doubt will make up part of the new case

"If that’s what Essendon planned (Thymosin and not TB4) and assumed Dank would order and inject then their main issue was putting trust in Dank to carry out his duties." Even if that were true, that's not a defence. WADA stipulates you ARE responsible for what you put into your body. If they unknowingly take something, this will of course be taken into consideration when determining the punishment. Also if this was the case and Dank did deliberately inject them, then this all of a sudden becomes a criminal act should the players feel the need to take Dank to court. The question I would then ask is, what motive does Dank have for injecting these players unknowingly?

I would imagine that in matters such as this, that a receipt would be given to the club for the evidence removed and that the club would get to keep a copy of the evidence. To believe that neither side would have used it is ridiculous. If ASADA had it and believed it helped to prove guilt, they would have bought it up. If Essendon believed it helped demonstrate innocence, they would have brought it up

Who pays the judges salaries at the AFL Anti Doping Tribunal? At least with the CAS the governing body is not paying the wages of the Judges who will adjudicate the matter.

As I wrote at the time the AFL Tribunal's decision was the worst possible in the circumstances ie. a Scottish verdict of "not proven". Although some suggest the Tribunal was independent, the inter-woven relationships in Melbourne's establishment and the way in which AFL and "following a footy team" are integral to the social fabric of the place made it almost impossible for the members to be entirely unmindful of the personal and professional consequences of a guilty verdict. To put it another way a guilty verdict would have, in the eyes of some, branded forever the members as the blokes who damaged "our game", who screwed Hirdy and the Bombers. Essendon and the AFL are now on a hiding to nothing. WADA and CAS are out to make an example. The AFL are the perfect target, prominent enough but a minor sport on the world sporting landscape.

The players gave their consent, by their mere presence at the arogant and conceited "We are innocent" press conference. They were happy to put their hands up when they believed they'd got off scott free. Tune's changed now

Presumably the spreadsheet is an electronic document, saved somewhere. Hard to delete something permanently from a a server, can usually be recovered. What a load of bull.

In the Armstrong case basically the whole team had fallen over on drugs already and Armstrong was implicated by the others - in the Essendon case seemingly not one single player has been comfortably seen to be guilty and if each of the 34 is tested individually I'm not sure how many if any could be comfortably seen to be guilty. The 34 had different schedules of injections so it'll be very interesting to see what path it all heads down. I'd hate to think that CAS/WADA would ban all 34 assuming that any who were 'innocent' were justifiable collateral damage.

#Lamby However the AFL tribunal was NOT made up purely of people from the AFL community. One ex-player who is a barrister, the other 2 retired county court judges. There will be NO WADA tribunal. There will be a CAS 'tribunal' - a group of 3 arbiters. One CAS, one effectively a WADA nominated and one a 'defence' nominated. One would hope they all approach with open minds, legal fairness and don't go agenda driven to the detriment of the outcome. And for the AFL tribunal - it had a decision making framework to work within. While ignorant commentators on social media threads can make grand sweeping statements - the reality is that most of us just don't know or don't know enough. Personally - I reckon the Essendon players have been through enough - and I'm not sure what is still to be gained in the fairness category (other than perhaps Watson to be stripped of his Brownlow). THe players had an entire season invalidated and missed finals - that is effectively a retrospective 12 month ban.

what conflict of interest?? It was due process. It applies in all cases. The WADA compliant sports body get's to pass judgement - as in the case of Ahmed Saad (AFL tribunal applied 18 month penalty) - and ASADA had option to appeal and did (wanting the extra 6 months) - and in that case the AFL tribunal threw it out and WADA did not opt to appeal. Due process was followed in the Essendon case. Where due process was not seen to be followed was the shady deal making in the NRL case and how WADA didn't find that on the nose?? (well - perhaps they did and that's why WADA are riding ASADA harder now??). Although - unfortunately CAS has not covered itself in glory in it's first 24 hours of dealing with this by exposing all 34 players names on their website. Taken down now but too late - damage done - and does that instil a sense of confidence in their professionalism and procedures?? Not really.