Might depend on the specific wording of the query from the AFL. Did they ask "Was Stephen Dank ever employed by the club?" or "Has anyone at the club ever been in contact with Stephen Dank?". Those questions can have completely opposite answers and both be correct.

What is correct then, as I don't know and neither does anyone else on Demonland or in the media, yet plenty once again convict and hang us.

See post 74.

My attitude is the club should have come clean day 1. While the statement they issued in Feb was technically correct, it was also lie by omission IMO. The admin have tried to be smartarses but should have just played a straight bat. There was nothing to gain from going the way we have.

Get rid of them. Final straw.

This is a fiasco masquerading as a football club. The MFC doesn't remind me of Fitzroy at the moment (they had been broke for nearly 20 years before they moved to Brisbane), it reminds me of World Championship Wrestling (the American version that folded in 2001). I won't go into specifics so you will have to look them up on Wikipedia.

Might depend on the specific wording of the query from the AFL. Did they ask "Was Stephen Dank ever employed by the club?" or "Has anyone at the club ever been in contact with Stephen Dank?". Those questions can have completely opposite answers and both be correct.

Exactly

Caro Wilson etal are trying to make everything appear sinister

The whole MFC thing is a beat up Perhaps Bates shouldnt have consulted Danks He did but as is said above its nothing like Essendon

Some recognized this sooner than others but were dismissed as vendetta driven.

I feel for the supporters, not because of not being told the truth on Dank, but for being fed so much hope and swindled. But the easiest thing to sell is hope to a fractured club.

I strongly suspected it was all rot, but of course that was not the message people wanted.

To Jack's comments. I couldn't give a rats clacker that members were lied to, it may have been done for the right reasons.

But to lie to the AFL is inexcusable.

Bob,

For the purposes of clarification, I want to stress that I don't condone telling lies to the AFL or anyone else although some might say that since the language of the AFL is all lies then at least in doing so, they're speaking the AFL's language.

Of course, it's madness to mislead the AFL.

But let's not conflate the issues here - I'm referring to the specific matter of misleading the members which is unforgivable.

I just do not understand why we didn't come clean in Feb with associations with Dank.

Suppositions:

Schwab should have known and it is even more concerning if he didn't know. The FD is keeping secrets from the Admin.

or

The Board should have known and it is even more concerning if they didn't know. The Admin is disconnected from the Board again.

or

The Board did know and decided that discretion was the better part of being stupid and we have a PR blow-up and possible sanctions for PED use.

I have to say I am 100% with W_J on this one.

Until now I have been largely supportive of the Board. But when the Board starts thinking it's OK to omit or mislead to the point of lying to its constituents, enough is enough.

The day before asking CS to resign, Don said that there will not be sackings and that strong clubs do not react by getting rid of people. That was plainly misleading. He did not need to say it. Whether it was the right decision is up for debate, but the method of communication with members was simply bad.

By saying that we did not employ Danks, it is clear that this is an answer to the wrong question. Maybe someone who thinks they are clever decided to answer in that manner because they naively thought that we would never get found out for having an association, but it is absolutely obvious that whether we employed him or entered into some other supply agreement with him, it is our association with him that is potentially an issue. Our statement at the time now appears to be misleading and deceptive.

Worse, it appears that, despite the briefings with the AFL and our recent experience with the AFL integrity team, we failed to even brief them on the extent of our relationship with Danks. That is just incompetent.

It is not that we have done anything wrong with Danks. On the contrary, from early reports, we have done everything right by managing it with approved drugs and through our Dr.

But the way we have handled it is a disgrace, and those who knew or ought to have known have to go.

Edited April 19, 201312 yr by Choko

Why would the club doctor call the players by their surnames??

Because they were SMS messages (brief by name & nature) and "Jack" is not unique name on our list?

I hope Andy D comes down hard on those individuals that lied to him.

It's unethical by our board..

It's got to the point where I hope the AFL stand in here, these blokes running our club are destroying it.

Ethics, ethics, ethics... We got none, that is clear as day.. We tank, we Dank and then we wonder whats wrong with the culture.

Get rid of these fools, the lot of them, this is beyond the joke, it's only round 4 and we have fallen apart.

I am glad the AFL appointed us Jackson to sack half these incompetent fools.

I have reread the club statement for the third time.

If accurate, Dank was never employed by the club. Dank may have discussed supplements with the club Doctor. Dank never personally gave anything to a player. The Doctor supervised the program and after checking, approved all supplements given. There is no allegation of any banned substance being given to an MFC player. The Clinic has confirmed any supplements given were as ordered by the Doctor and given by a registered Nurse. Any connection/discussion with Dank was severed when his position was challenged in the Essendon announcement. There are no no hidden contracts with players. There are no stomach injections alleged. There is no suggestion of any Coaches being injected with banned substances. Everything went through the club Doctor as is now prescribed by the AFL.

The conclusion by many on here is that the club has lied to the AFL when it said that Dank was never employed by the club, or administered substances to players, or prescribed substances to players.

At worst a Doctor has discussed substances with Dank, that he later checked and found were not illegal or banned and in some instances prescribed their use under his supervision.

This is nothing like the Bombers situation,where they can't even say what drugs were injected into player's stomachs 12 months later, let alone secret contracts and Dank heading the program and bypassing the club Doctor..

Where is the LIE in what has been revealed?

SNAP

Thats true, they have sat during all that, like the waterboys and girls.

Old dee dont fall into the trap of not remembering responsibilities. Boards dont oversee the day-to-day activities of the club, it cannot control its players, it merely controls the financials and appointment of key positions such as coach and CEO.

In regards to the negotiations, in terms of oppotunity cost, we were far better off settling. The costs of appealing (apparently were around the same figure), stress and overall risk of outcome (not good precedent for sporting teams appealing) were too high.

Also you forget the most important thing the board has done, and even for you I'm surprised you've been so one-sided, was to get us debt free... They wiped out $5 million during the GFC, when others were calling for our end, and got us into a profit last year.

I'll be the first to admit that they will have to burnden some responsibility for this, but I can assure you that most of them wouldnt have known. They are just board members. They meet once in a while, this isnt their primary job, and cannot tell you what the club doctor has been doing.

The person who should have known, and the one II've been wondering wtf was happening when he was in power was CS.

You have a right to be axe angry, I'm angry too credit where credit is due and blame where blame is due.

AS WJ stated in his opening.

The Buck stops at the top.

Who has been at the top through all this crap?

DM

Move on Don

The sanctions and penalties are what could really hurt us here.

How will the club survive another massive fine, or losing points or picks overthe next couple of years.

Lets hope it doesnt get to that stage.

"High performance with high integrity" ...... outstanding ethos but shallow words if you don't live and breathe them.

Personally, I find ongoing poor performance difficult to swallow, but I choke on lack of integrity.

Listening to Neil Mitchell's interview with AD this morning, I'm left with little doubt that we told out and out lies to the AFL.

I don't think I've ever felt so deeply embarrassed by this club.

Just to rub salt into the wounds. Neeld comes out and effectively throws in the towel for Sunday's game.

Brilliant

The sanctions and penalties are what could really hurt us here.

How will the club survive another massive fine, or losing points or picks overthe next couple of years.

Lets hope it doesnt get to that stage.

Losing points wont bother us ,,,, What points ????? lol

If there's absolutely no problem with our supplements program or any association with Dank in relation to it and we have nothing to hide then why did we abruptly cease communications with Dank when the Essendon press conference occured? Source: 730

If there's absolutely no problem with our supplements program or any association with Dank in relation to it and we have nothing to hide then why did we abruptly cease communications with Dank when the Essendon press conference occured? Source: 730

Because it was the right bloody thing to do, that way the Club doesn't get dragged into the mess, even though we have, you ask for good governance and then question it.........this is what I rail against

If Mclardy ran his commercial business this way he would be broke.

No he'd be rich which is why this is how he operates

If there's absolutely no problem with our supplements program or any association with Dank in relation to it and we have nothing to hide then why did we abruptly cease communications with Dank when the Essendon press conference occured? Source: 730

Because it was the correct thing to do.

That media conference alerted the football world to a potential problem with a person.

Because it was the correct thing to do.

That media conference alerted the football world to a potential problem with a person.

Right, and a competent administration would follow that cutting of ties with a public admission of ties, an internal review, and a vow to cooperate with authorities.

Because it was the correct thing to do.

That media conference alerted the football world to a potential problem with a person.

Indeed it was the right thing to do. Given that, do you think that the right thing to do would also have been to divulge all of our contact with this person with a potential problem?

Because it was the correct thing to do.

That media conference alerted the football world to a potential problem with a person.

AFAIK, the only incorrect thing done was the failure to just be effing clear about it from the start. Do that and there is no problem. But noooooooooooooooooooo. This club has to find a situation and then think "what is the one way I can guarantee to [censored] this right up - I KNOW - lie to the AFL and make AD look stupid!"

Don must resign now. The rest of the board need to concentrate on the new CEO, replacing Neeld and then replacing themselves.

Because it was the right bloody thing to do, that way the Club doesn't get dragged into the mess, even though we have, you ask for good governance and then question it.........this is what I rail against

Good grief man. The club was dragged into this mess the moment they found out about the issues at Essendon at the hand of Dank.

One club hired an outsider to perform a transparent internal investigation and the other tried to cover up its association hoping the matter would never reach the surface.

One club is inept. Guess which one ?

Because it was the right bloody thing to do, that way the Club doesn't get dragged into the mess, even though we have, you ask for good governance and then question it.........this is what I rail against

I think this is it.

To come out and admit communications with Dank around the same time as the rumours were flying about Essendon and their supplement program, and official ASADA questioning, would clearly have led to the Club being drawn into that crisis, rightly or wrongly, regardless of whether Dank was injecting players with horse tranquilisers, or Bates was seeking advice on efficacy of vitamin tablets.

As Young Dee alluded to in another thread, this statement was come up with quite quickly, as opposed to other missives released by the Club in recent times.

I wouldn't be surprised if the club was, under its own steam, and at an opportune time for such an announcement, preparing to release this information regardless.

Unfortunately, given the massive shellacking the Club has copped, between the 'tanking' fiasco, the awful start to the season, and all other media scuttlebutt around, they have (correctly, IMO) held off on this.

It then blew up in their face, as Dank continues to run off scot-free. This is not to say that I don't have issues with the way it was handled, which I definitely do, and would've preferred more transparency from the club, but I can see some logic as to why it has played out like it has.

Losing points wont bother us ,,,, What points ????? lol

no, but loss of percentage will be a killer