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The Court of Arbitration for Sport has overturned the not guilty verdict previously handed down to 34 past and present AFL players, all of whom will now likely serve backdated two-year bans. The announcement has resulted shock, outrage and unfortunately heavy criticism of both WADA and the CAS.
However the fact is the Essendon 34 cheated, and we have known that for three years now.
The only thing preventing them from being convicted earlier was the lack of evidence, yet WADA was able to provide complementary evidence on top of that provided to the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal by ASADA that allowed the CAS to rule in their favour.
It is not surprising the players are angry, those still playing are about to have a year taken off their careers, and those no longer playing will struggle to work again in sport. There is legitimate speculation that this suspension will end careers.
But the 34 are also lucky in a way; their two-year suspension has been backdated to March 31, 2015. When you take into account the period they spent provisionally suspended prior to the 2015 AFL season, most players will be free to return to AFL in November.
Yes, the suspension will be much longer than that handed to the Cronulla Sharks players, who eventually pled guilty to their own peptide use. But 11 months is much better than 24.
Ultimately, however, the players need to move on and accept the ban. They need to accept that they committed an offence, and they must accept the consequences.
It may have been a club-administered drug program, and James Hird, Stephen Dank and others must accept a portion of the responsibility, but the WADA code makes it very clear that each individual athlete is 100 per cent responsible for everything that goes into their body.
Ask any semi-professional swimmer, athlete, rower, kayaker or canoeist, and they will tell you how careful they have to be about every single thing they eat and drink. Before they take a simple cold and flu tablet, they check the ASADA website to ensure it is legal – yes, some common cold and flu tablets are on the banned list. The ASADA website informs athletes to avoid some supplements altogether, because you never know what is in the product.
According to WADA, blaming the coach is not an acceptable excuse. If WADA had lost this appeal, or if the athletes had been given heavily discounted suspensions for unknowingly taking the peptide Thymosin Beta-4, it would have set a dangerous precedent.
WADA successfully argued that by signing a compliance form, the players absolved the coaching staff of all responsibility. Their signature was proof that they knew exactly what they were taking. This is a bit of a stretch, because the waivers also stated that the supplement program was ASADA-approved and the drug was simply listed as Thymosin, and other forms of Thymosin are ASADA approved. But per the code, it is up to the athletes to check the exact details of the drug. The Essendon 34 did not do this.
It is easy to understand why the players did not do any further research about the products that were being injected into them. They were told these drugs were legal, and they were going to prove the difference between playing finals footy and languishing down the bottom of the ladder. For a young man when the rest of your team is signing up to this program, it is incredibly difficult to say no. The peer pressure is strong, you feel like you’re letting your teammates down, and may even feel that you will lose your position in the top squad.
But if we justify this doping program and tell ourselves that it is okay, then we can justify a large number of doping programs throughout the past 50 years.
Those teammates of Lance Armstrong who doped? They only did it because they didn’t want to let down their team leader. The East German athletes who lived in state-run sports academies and were fed ‘vitamins’ that turned out to be performance-enhancing drugs? They were largely oblivious to the fact that what they were doing was wrong.
But we didn’t accept any of these excuses. We were outraged, and rightfully so. These athletes, coaches and governments tainted their sports and negatively affected the careers of clean competitors.
The same can be said for Essendon’s deplorable program. Not only has it put the players’ health and safety at risk, but the club also broke the rules in order to gain an edge. Obviously there was a failure of management somewhere within the club, and it is clear that those in positions of power did not do the necessary research to ensure what was happening was legal.
However, that doesn’t absolve the players of responsibility. This lies at the heart of the WADA code: the player is always responsible.
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