North Melbourne coach Brad Scott and the besieged Carlton Football Club have every reason to personally thank WADA for appealing the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal’s verdict to clear the 34 current and past Essendon players of taking a banned substance.
Scott has been accused of being involved in an altercation in Hobart with a security guard after North’s win over Richmond, while the Blues, well, where do we start? They are facing the heat for their horrible start to the season from all angles with coach Mick Malthouse in particular under the pump.
However, the Essendon supplements scandal has sadly sullied the game for more than two years now and after the Bombers and especially coach James Hird seemed to think in a rather naive manner that the matter was done and dusted, there’s still much to play out.
WADA will take it the court of arbitration for sport, but it won’t be happening tomorrow. It could be another three months at least with August tipped as the favoured month at this stage.
At the press conference on Tuesday Hird quite flippantly expressed his surprise that WADA wanted to revisit it, but James remember, they are the World Anti-Doping Agency, the biggest body opposing the use of banned substances in sport.
They usurp ASADA, who didn’t really cover themselves in glory in the way they put together their case against Essendon and their 34 past and current players.
There was enough evidence for the AFL to issue show cause notices against these players that they have been injected with the banned substance, Thymosin Beta-4, but the AFL’s Anti-Doping Tribunal couldn’t prove that evidence to find the players guilty.
The AFL can ill afford this outcome considering what a terrifically tight on-field competition 2015 is turning out to be but this appeal by WADA is completely out of their control.
What is for sure though is that this will be the last role of the dice according to legal experts. Whatever verdict the Court of Arbitration for Sport comes up with will be the abiding decision.
As mentioned earlier, the decision probably won’t be revealed until August near the end of the home-and-away season and could derail another Essendon campaign like 2013 if suspensions are handed down.
Knowing the Bomber players and the way they have handled this controversy with their on-field performances they will be competitive and in finals contention, although they lack the talent to be a top four and premiership contender.
You can only play under adversity and on sheer emotion with that ‘us against them’ mentality for so long, though, and once again it will dominate the footy world.
However, at the end of the day, as has been constantly highlighted in this sad and sordid story, Essendon under James Hird, Stephen Dank and Dean Robinson were looking for that extra edge to stay ahead of the rest of the competition.
They flew close to the edge and at times even tipped over. What ever happens with the WADA appeal and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the entire Essendon Football Club only has themselves to blame.
I will let you know when we hit the 1000-day anniversary of this story. It’s not that far away.
Mikey
Guest
Yes - and that helped him get away with cheating for a long, long time. But I miss your point - most EFC advocates hate when bloggers use the Armstrong comparisons because he turned cheating into an art form - so I am not sure why you used him? .
conchie
Roar Rookie
Lance Armstrongs were perfect and verifiable
Mikey
Guest
Conchie - the spreadsheet would mean something if it was supported by verifiable records. Without these verifiable support records it is worthless as anyone could put on it anything they wanted - which is the point I was making. So for Hird to make the claim he did was ludicrous.- it has since been reported that the players lawyers had the spreadsheet and did not use it as part of the players defence. It was also suggested that Paul Little has seen it and most likely has a copy. Hird should know all this - so why did he say it? Your comment about accusing me of murder - . if you could back your accusation with strong circumstantial evidence - such as being seen at the scene of the crime - then I would need to explain my whereabouts at the time of the murder. The close to equivalent defence in that circumstance might be "I don't know where I was at the time of the murder but you still cant' prove I did it" That defence might succeed but - other than me and my lawyers - no-one else would think that is a satisfactory result. And that is the situation we have with the EFC with the "Dog ate my homework" defence. Nobody outside of the EFC thinks that is good enough. And that is probably why WADA are pursuing this as far as they can.
conchie
Roar Rookie
Your exactly right mikey, the spreadsheets are worthless, everyones are, yet people keep demanding Essendon are stuffed without them, so now they are stuffed with or without. They are only as good as what you wan't to believe. I contend that you murdered someone last year, not sure of the date, we don't have a body or any witnesses but prove you did not do it.
Mikey
Guest
Conchie - I have been on a diet for the last few months and have kept a spreadsheet of everything I am eating. Only problem instead of losing weight I have put on 5 kilos and I have now been accused of cheating. There is also circumstantial evidence that I have been seem entering the premises of McDonalds and KFC on a daily basis. But there is no record of this on my spreadsheet so clearly it didn't happen. Or if I did happen to go into KFC - it doesn't mean I actually ate anything does it! I opened up my cupboards completely on this to my accusers and they have not been able to find any evidence I cheated - not a KFC box anywhere in sight. There is no hard evidence that I cheated on my diet and this whole thing is clearly a conspiracy against me. All my accusers have is a bit of flimsy circumstantial evidence (weight gain/KFC & Macca's sightings). Thank goodness I kept the spreadsheet because that is the conclusive evidence that I am INNOCENT! Hang on - I was just looking for my spreadsheet and it is missing! I gave it my main accuser (my wife) to look at and I don't know what she has done with it. But I did here her mumbling something like "it is not worth the paper it is written on". I am now suspecting she may have destroyed it! This is outrageous and I am clearly being made a scapegoat/victim here for some other agenda. (Not sure what the other agenda is but how else can you explain how I have been treated!) I believe that I am innocent, my dog believes I am innocent, my grandma (deceased) believes I am innocent - So therefore I am innocent!
conchie
Roar Rookie
Essendon handed over it's records to ASADA, ASADA complimented them on the help they provided. A spread sheet of supplement use was handed to ASADA by Ian Robson
spruce moose
Guest
Essendon making sure they kept no records helped too.
spruce moose
Guest
I love your nom-de-plume. Where is Gene?
Perry Bridge
Guest
#pjm You reckon?? That's Bec Wilson's line. The evidence fell away in proving that TB4 actually got to Essendon so the notion of comfortable satisfaction that even 1 of the player group (let alone all 34) received injections didn't come into it. That's not being overly strict. The Lance Armstrong case was different in that it was established that other members of his squad were on the juice - the trail to the squad was established. And usage established. In the Essendon case - there's still water to go under the bridge but whatever outcome comes out of the CAS hearing let's at least hope that the burden of proof is sufficiently solid.
Gecko
Guest
Spot on, WhereIsGene. Actually I think the players have been sufficiently punished but there's still a sense that Hird and Dank have gotten off too lightly. And when WADA suspend the club, maybe Goddard and Gwilt could go back to help out the Saints.
Chancho
Roar Rookie
Yep, as per the WADA website, it's the players https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2015-05/wada-statement-on-afl-cases
WhereIsGene
Guest
I wouldn't characterize Hird as particularly smart. Cunning, perhaps. All he's doing is reading from Liz Lukin's PR strategy running sheet, or whomever is running the show over at Essendon these days. Actually he's so inarticulate he can barely string a well-constructed sentence together without repeating himself or stumbling over all those big words. Perhaps he isn't approaching Robbo levels of incoherence but its quite obvious he's a footballer first and foremost, not someone who earns a living by exploiting their grey matter - Bomber Thompson was always the fellow who did that for him.
albatross
Roar Pro
Where's the club medical staff in all of this? Or haven't I been keeping up. Surely they have some questions to answer?
DB
Guest
"The real underlying issue here, which it always has been, is the failure in duty of care by the club to its players." So lets punish the players for it.
DB
Guest
It's a surprise to everyone even legal experts that WADA appealed. FFS it appears that a lot of you just wish to state that Australian Football is not international. We know, We don't care. And that's got nothing to do with WADA. You just like digging at Australian Football to staisfy your own insecurities.
Perry Bridge
Guest
What there variously are things such as 'dubious' records, as well as dubious witnesses, and then there's picking and choosing out of all that what to base a prosecution around and what to try to discredit - or the alternative what to base a defence around and what to discredit.
Davico
Guest
Actually WADA does not have to prove WHAT the players took only that they broke the code. If they cannot prove what they took that breaks the code. It is the exact reason atheletes get banned for missing tests even if they have not failed a test.
andyl12
Guest
The point that the game needs a strong Essendon is BS. Crowd figures hit their peak in 2008 and 2010, both years when Essendon languished at the bottom. The lowest crowd figures in my lifetime were in 1985 when Essendon won the flag, and they suffered a significant drop last year even though Essendon made the finals and their fans were apparently out in force sticking up for the side. Essendon have been living off their inheritance the last 15 years, I can't think of anything good they've done for themselves or for football in that time.
Penster
Guest
Not blind sheep, biding their time. They have a small window of time for a successful footy career (except Dustin Fletcher, whatever he's on, I'll have) and need to make the most of it and the big $$$ it generates. But when they retire, may well be a different story.
Geoff Parkes
Expert
Do I listen to Rebecca Wilson PB? No mate, life is far too short to subject myself to that.