Now this gets me. How can you back date a penalty they have not been penalised for in the first place. Well we will suspend you for 2 years but it's ok we're going to count the last 2 years you played and call that the penalty.

I get in the legal system if you have been in remand for an amount of time then that can count, you've actually been locked away but these guys have been playing. The world has seriously gone crazy if this is acceptable to anyone.

It's an interesting one.

The same logic was applied to Contador, they ran his two year ban from the date he received the Notice. He appealed the Notice and was allowed to keep competing until the final hearing by the Court of Arbitration of Sport hearing which upheld the Notice. That was 18mths after the Notice so he only had to serve a 6mth ban after that hearing. The difference is he was stripped of all results during the period he competed which included the 2010 Tour de France.

In the NRL case there is nothing to strip so it's a pretty minor penalty even compared to Contador but also probably reflects the general consensus that the players were forced into this situation by Dank without any intention on their part. If there is enough evidence, you have to accept the doping charge even though you weren't actively involved in meaning to do it.

Essendon's problem is if they win the cases ASADA will just issue new Notices and the clock will start ticking from that time so they won't get any benefit of delay between Notices and final decision like what the NRL players are being offered. So at best their full 6 mths will run from the date of the Infraction Notices which might not be until after Christmas depending on when Middleton hands down his decision thus totally screwing their season next year. That all would have been largely avoided if they had accepted the current Notices. They may not make the finals anyway this year but it would have limited it to this season. Not great logic by Essendon. I would have got on with it if I was a player. However, I also would have wanted to see the evidence ASADA strangely have withheld to date. Don't know how you plead guilty to something you say you have no knowledge of if they won't even give you the evidence they have.

the whole drug investigation is a farce if essendon is allowed to have backdated, offseason or light penalties. They have systematically run a drugs program for their players. ASADA is as much as a joke as the AFL who knew essendon were doing these sort of things before the day of shame revelations and did nothing about it.

As I understand it, the offer to the NRL players is backdated 12 months to the date of the ASADA investigation report into Cronulla which was 1 November last year. The investigation into Essendon wasn't finalised until a few months ago so the backdating of their offer the same way would still keep any Essendon players who agreed to such a deal out for half a season.

All of this would have to be subject to WADA approval because I don't think it will be pleased at this sort of dealing.

It's an interesting one.

The same logic was applied to Contador, they ran his two year ban from the date he received the Notice. He appealed the Notice and was allowed to keep competing until the final hearing by the Court of Arbitration of Sport hearing which upheld the Notice. That was 18mths after the Notice so he only had to serve a 6mth ban after that hearing. The difference is he was stripped of all results during the period he competed which included the 2010 Tour de France.

In the NRL case there is nothing to strip so it's a pretty minor penalty even compared to Contador but also probably reflects the general consensus that the players were forced into this situation by Dank without any intention on their part. If there is enough evidence, you have to accept the doping charge even though you weren't actively involved in meaning to do it.

Essendon's problem is if they win the cases ASADA will just issue new Notices and the clock will start ticking from that time so they won't get any benefit of delay between Notices and final decision like what the NRL players are being offered. So at best their full 6 mths will run from the date of the Infraction Notices which might not be until after Christmas depending on when Middleton hands down his decision thus totally screwing their season next year. That all would have been largely avoided if they had accepted the current Notices. They may not make the finals anyway this year but it would have limited it to this season. Not great logic by Essendon. I would have got on with it if I was a player. However, I also would have wanted to see the evidence ASADA strangely have withheld to date. Don't know how you plead guilty to something you say you have no knowledge of if they won't even give you the evidence they have.

Thanks for the history on this; I still don't like it at all but then again I don't like most things when politics and money gets involved.

I'm also amazed they can have a backdated penalty of not being able to play until this November. As rjay said, it makes sense if someone has been locked away on remand to have that count towards their sentence, but if there are no awards to strip the players of, what do they care (except the druggy lable). Is ASADA playing games with Essendon? Given what WJ posted above, we might see Essendon withdraw their current case to also get a backdated playing ban imposed - what a laugh that would be.

Edited August 21, 201411 yr by sue

Yes but still guilty of a doping violation..

... because there was a doping violation.

Who's to blame for the 'blackest day in Australian sport'?

Peter Fitzsimons has nailed it when it comes to responding to the critics of ASADA's investigation:-

When ASADA becomes aware of this, what the hell should they have done?

Yes, it has taken a long time, but the fact that instead of co-operation investigators have been greeted with neither a flock of seagulls, nor a school of fish but ... a stonewall of lawyers, has meant that they have had to proceed very, very carefully.

And so, finally, here we are. The process will continue to be drawn out from here, at least for those players who continue to refuse to co-operate.

But the bottom line remains. The government, quite rightly, set up a body to administer the anti-doping laws, and investigate those thought to be in breach. That body, ASADA, is in the process of getting scalps. For all the heat they’ve received for their trouble, for all the lack of support from those who should know better, they are helping to make it an even playing field in Australian sport, and in the process making it a safer one.

Bravo, ASADA.

ust about nowhere do you see the word that should be front and centre of the whole sorry saga, for it is what the whole thing is about. For, make no mistake, what they are showing cause for is why they shouldn’t be charged with CHEATING.

Just like Lance Armstrong cheated. Like Ben Johnson cheated. Like, it seems, allegedly, Essendon cheated.

Like ... how hard is this to understand?

bang.

Who's to blame for the 'blackest day in Australian sport'?

Peter Fitzsimons has nailed it when it comes to responding to the critics of ASADA's investigation:-

Ol' Fitzy nails it again. Strangely one of the very few to actually get all of this and amazingly about the only one north of the Murray !!

The pressure on the players is back on ~ ASADA tables offer to AFL for Essendon players to accept six month bans.

The pressure on the players is back on ~ ASADA tables offer to AFL for Essendon players to accept six month bans.

6 month bans are still on the table after Essendon have dragged ASADA into the courts?

Thats a joke

6 month bans are still on the table after Essendon have dragged ASADA into the courts?

Thats a joke

drives a little wedge between the club and players, this is about more than the players now, ASADA will want to busy any respect Essendon had left

6 month bans are still on the table after Essendon have dragged ASADA into the courts?

Thats a joke

Not if it inserts a wedge between the players and Essendon. Skeletons might really start kicking at closet doors then.

Edit: As Sir Paul has just said.

Edited August 21, 201411 yr by Dr John Dee

a game of bluff and double bluff

Not if it inserts a wedge between the players and Essendon. Skeletons might really start kicking at closet doors then.

Edit: As Sir Paul has just said.

yeah true

Any length ban is going to cause world war 3 inside Essendon HQ

Looking forward to Hird being banned for life and the players suing the club into extinction

of course the minute the players accept the bans then Hird and Co are guilty as hell

fun and games

yeah true

Any length ban is going to cause world war 3 inside Essendon HQ

Looking forward to Hird being banned for life and the players suing the club into extinction

if the players receive Bans it is a massive kick in the daddy pills for Bombers HQ, suddenly the public see's how obviously Little has been trying to get them off on a technicality, just how bad James Hird has been and they get to struggle to shake the cheaters tag for the next decade at least

^^^^ this is what should happen but the media in Melbourne are happy to say they were all duped so they aren't drug cheats and it's no one fault maybe danks!!!

I was amazed listening to talkback! They say it takes five pre seasons to get afl fitness and essendon players young player did it in two with the peptides but everyone sees them as the victim... Even if they didn't know the exact drugs they knew they were close to the line and there bodies were getting massive benefits in size body fat and speed

It's [censored] thankfully these discounts don't have wara approval so I hope they all agree and was a appeal everyone of them

6 month bans are still on the table after Essendon have dragged ASADA into the courts?

Thats a joke

No it's not - the bans would be on the players; it's the club that dragged ASADA into court. We shouldn't confuse the issues.

The players were almost certainly lied to and manipulated by their revered coach and surely by all the relevant staff at the club. Goodness knows what they have since been told by the club, but their silence suggests it has to have been something quite powerful, and presumably regularly reiterated. The players' position is in many ways the worst of anyone's, in that it is their livelihood and possibly future health at stake, and month follows month with them held silent on the sidelines, mere appendages, collateral to the legal stoush their employer now focuses on. So six months for the player victims has a bit of justice about it I think, so long as they are ultimately able to speak and they accept their fault and show remorse.

But the club - that's a different matter. An appropriate sanction on the club for throwing the whole issue into a legal smokescreen eventually has to be worked out as a completely separate matter. Obviously the club has been start-to-finish cynical, devious and dishonest, and - once challenged on this - became destructive and obstructionist, turning the whole thing into a bottomless pit for money leached out of everyone at Essendon's mercy; the Essendon Football Club is now seen with its wrecking ball, rebellious against the very concept of being scrutinised or held accountable for their intention and sustained practice in chemical cheating. Six months for that, I agree, would be a joke.

I'm not sure whether Essendon's greater offence would be against ASADA or the AFL - ASADA might ban the club for say a couple of years, despite the upheavals that must cause; but for the AFL, what Essendon has done surely entails the worst disrepute ever. Essendon is mounting a challenge against the legality of the AFL having tried to investigate with those best qualified to do it the rottenness that they Essendon have brought into the league; with Essendon presumably being able next, supposing they win, to attack the sanctions already imposed last year by the AFL; Essendon have effectively stared down the AFL with the Essendon "whatever it takes" mantra, and it is a declaration of war.

That is a very different position to the position of their poor first victims, the players. Eventually when the two cases are separated, there must be very different sanctions determined for the two: for insufficient vigilance against a trusted employer on the one hand, and on the other, ongoing, unrepentant, deliberate cheating, and not just trying to cover up their sins but challenging the right of the AFL and ASADA to regulate for a clean sport, dragging down Aussie Rules football before an astonished and watching sport world.

Those responsible for all of this should never again be allowed to have control of an AFL license; and how the entire club can be let off when they have endorsed and financed the club's behaviour I don't know. Coach, President, medical staff and any other staff who had any part in it, must all be gone. Maybe the captain too. I think the Essendon members who have not done their due diligence and blown the whistle, have a lot to answer for, too: their position of ignorance and then denial is in many ways similar to that of the players, except that it is continuing while the AFL is being brought into disrepute of enormously damaging proportions. What Essendon has done and defended is a systematic dismantling of one of the very foundations of competitive sport in the 21st Century. How can members of the club not be criticised when they have not demanded this be stopped?

Once ASADA and the court cases finish, the AFL is going to have to salvage some credibility from the Essendon affair, and that will have to be expensive.

Edited August 21, 201411 yr by robbiefrom13

this new media claim of a new 6 mth offer is a press beat-up

there is no new offer

the afl has not received an offer (and why should THEY)

the show cause notices are on standby till the current court ruling

mclachlan confirmed as much on 3aw

this new media claim of a new 6 mth offer is a press beat-up

there is no new offer

the afl has not received an offer (and why should THEY)

the show cause notices are on standby till the current court ruling

mclachlan confirmed as much on 3aw

It sounded somewhat strange that a new offer would be made at this time given that Middleton J has not delivered his judgement in the Federal Court but then everything about this sorry saga has sounded strange.

Sharks accept bans

https://twitter.com/bradwaltersmh/status/502610181767692288

12 months backdated to November 2013 LOL

and WADA ticked off on this?

HH, do you mean "did WADA approve this" or "is WADA annoyed by this"? What you wrote could mean either

HH, do you mean "did WADA approve this" or "is WADA annoyed by this"? What you wrote could mean either

maybe both...lol