AFL Players' Association CEO says banned players are "victims, not perpetrators"

how is it incompatible with domestic team sports? this is a laughable argument. Don't take banned substances. Make sure you know what is going into your body. ALL young athletes, under WADA juristiction, follow the same rules. We are not talking about a bunch of 5 year olds here. To suggest that ANY and EVERY group of footballers are collectively stupid enough to be duped like this is quite insulting to all.

not really isn't paul part of the AFL

Nobody thinks they collectively decided to cheat. It's that they collectively went along with a process that was not within anti-doping rules without ever taking their own steps to confirm that it was all legal.

The soft tissue injury issue was after Dank started, not before.

I don't see why WADA codes are any less applicable to team sports than individual ones. After all, Lance Armstrong was part of a team that cheated.. In fact, team drug-taking was rife in cycling for years and it had one goal, to get the team leader the yellow jersey by giving not just him, but the rest of the team, a physical edge on the other teams. The whole point of the Dank regime was to give Essendon as a whole a similar edge. Everything Dank has said and indeed Hird has said, supports that concept. So then the question is, were the players coerced into accepting the drugging regimen, or did they buy into it? The evidence suggests the latter. And the lower burden of proof is one that has always been used in civil litigation.

Intent has nothing to do with the law, it is outcomes. I never intended to speed, but I still did it and then have to suffer the consequences. Further more, I believe that 34 players in a room were told they were going to be cheating and then did nothing about it. Then proceeded to lie about it on many occasions. They deserve everything that comes their way and if the AFL was serious about being clean, which they have demonstrated that they aren't, these players would never play again.

Hardly. They could have followed Zarahakis' lead and opted not to be involved. No whistle blowing necessary there. They could have taken the information of what they were receiving and called ASADA to verify it's legality. If they were advised not to discuss this with the Anti-Doping authority, I don't know how one couldn't have doubts on the process. They could have declared their injections to ASADA when tested. The documents that they signed could not legally prevent them from discussing the supplement program with ASADA. If they were unsure, they should have spoken to their manager who happily takes 10% of their income to confirm their rights and obligations. Sitting on your hands and then crying innocence is no excuse.

Deny, deny, deny. This is a basic protocol dealing with drug cheating. But this situation requires Mr Marsh to be a bit more nuanced. His player's will forever be drug cheats. Many football careers will be shortened and future earnings diminished. They will have few friends and poor prospects. The AFL, Essendon, the administrators, the other players and the fans will trundle on and return to normal, all the while making sure they avoid these tainted players. What is the bet that even the player's association eventually won't want them around. Given the above statements I seriously doubt Mr Marsh will have the right strategies to help these guys. I hate drugs and drug cheats. The promise of glamour invariably results in disasters that will give the rest of us a sense of schadenfreude and the feeling that the fight against drugs is being won but in reality is meaningless. How do we process the fact that the IAAF has stated that 42% of Russian athletes were drug cheats at the time of the London Olympics? 51 Australian drug cheats is truly the blackest day in Australia's sporting history. Well done to Gillard, Clare and Lundy who stood up to the appalling rhetoric from Abbott, the LNP and all those right wing shock jocks. And well done ASADA whose diligent work in the background produced the compelling breach notices that gave these athletes the consequences they deserved.

Marsh speaks the inconvenient truth to those who just want to see Essendon punished no matter the circumstances. WADA and its strict liability principle coupled with a low burden of proof is incompatible with domestic team sports. The AFL knew it and had to be forced to sign up in the first place at the risk of losing Government funding. Does anyone really believe 34 players got into a room and collectively decided to cheat. Not only is intent removed as a legal principle you can then be found guilty at a lower burden of proof. It is grossly unfair and Marsh is calling it. You would expect at least a unanimous decision (CAS) when the legal proof bar is set so low. .

I doubt the players knew they were doping. Essendon hired Dank to fix a performance problem with high workload causing high rates of soft tissue injuries in their players. Dank was making a lot of money and was under pressure to improve injury rates etc. This was a failure of governance at the club, as Dank elected to utilise TB4 - it's obvious that the best 'supplements' tend to be the prohibited ones. It's also clear that Dank wasn't accountable to ASADA, at least not in the way Essendon and its players were. It was extremely naive of Essendon officials to trust Dank. As for lying about the supplements program - even if they believed it was legal, it's of dubious ethical value and certainly skating close to the line. The fact the players lied doesn't mean they knew they were doping. They may have thought they were covering up an injection program that was sailing close to the wind, that would have embarrassed them and the club if it had become publicised. In my view, the more likely explanation is that the whole program was a giant comedy of errors and poor judgment - rather than a deliberate decision to go ahead and dope (except by Dank). However, the players' culpability lies in: 1. Failing in their duty to ensure they weren't being doped - i.e. trusting the club and Dank - which is a clear failure under WADA rules. 2. Subsequently attempting to cover up the evidence - even if they only learned it was doping when everyone else did.

I think you're missing the key issue. WADA doesn't require that players be whistleblowers; it requires that they not take performance enhancing substances. The players clearly did take those substances contrary to WADA rules. The fact that they lied about it afterwards suggests that they knew the supplements were "iffy," but decided to take the chance. One player didn't, and suffered no consequences from the club. So the 34 who did have to take responsibility for flouting WADA rules. Whistle blowing isn't the issue; taking the drugs and covering up afterwards is.

There is always the option to not dope.

Some interesting comments here. You are slamming the players for not being whistle blowers knowing that whistle blowers always loose. My understanding is they had to sign documents not to discuss the practice. In any other workplace a contract to conduct a criminal act is void and the employer would also be up for workplace harassment or bullying. I don't think the players had a lot of choice, do what you are told or loose your job, and we will make sure you never work in this industry again. These are not week men, it must have been very difficult to buck the system. How many heroes on this site have taken on their employers and won.,

I think it's unlikely that an elite footy player doing 'whatever it takes' to be the best he can be opted out of the injection program cos he was 'scared of needles'. That's like refusing to do tackling drills cos he didn't want to get hurt. He was protecting his teammates with that excuse. The truth is more likely that he used judgment and character to refuse them. He can't say that or he'd never be able to set foot in the club again.

i have a feeling that they knew exactly what was going on and agreed with it thinking it will help them win a Premiership. the play dumb tactics and doggy ate me homework defenses all now appear to be just a smokescreen. I think they actually thought they could get away with it. Maybe they had some assurances from the lawyers that as long as they left no evidence of the program, they could not be found guilty. Surprise surprise, the lack of evidence was their big trump defense card. I mean who would keep evidence of a concealed, secretive black-ops injection program?

Cheers

Or the reasonable step, when asked by ASADA, have you taken any supplements, of saying "yes".

Players took all reasonable steps. Except the reasonable step of personally seeking independent advice on the legality of the substances.

I thought he was just vert scared of needle ?

Victims....what a load of BS.....Not one when directly asked during Testing processes have you been receiving injections or taking any supplements, answered Yes. The players are not the innocent victims Essendon like to make out they are.