THE ESSENDON 34: ON TRIAL

[Demonised 1,215]

Based on what's happened in the past, since they were found not guilty of doing anything, that means they'll be fined, right?

[mauriesy 6,810]

All it shows is that if you obfuscate, deny, delay, hide evidence or don't keep records, you will get away with it on the basis that there is no "comfortable satisfaction" that you've done it.

[old dee 22,922]

All it shows is that if you obfuscate, deny, delay, hide evidence or don't keep records, you will get away with it on the basis that there is no "comfortable satisfaction" that you've done it.

Yes

It was always going to be the case.

[beelzebub 22,225]

I was wrong.

We were only wrong to suppose there was even the merest modicum of integrity about the tribunal. There wasnt.

The AFL picked three lapdogs and got there farce across the line.

Let loose the hounds....real ones with an appetite for fairness and justice.

If this stands I can hardly be bothered with footy....even for my beloved Dees.

[ManDee 7,089]

Bumping the WADA and ASADA contact details

We as a sport loving public must be heard

Thanks HH. My email To: WADA CC: ASADA

In Australia the Australian Rules Football (AFL) competition has allowed a club (Essendon FC) and its athletes to get away with using PED's.

Evidence establishes that the club (EFC) ordered and paid for thousands of injections of performance enhancing drugs. Indepenent inspectors called it a pharmacological experiment. An AFL tribunal have found the players not guilty.

Intent to use PED's is an offence under the WADA code.

What is WADA going to do to stop drug cheats in sport?

It is imperative that drug cheats are banned from sport.

Yours,

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sports lover.

http://www.asada.gov.au/rules_and_violations/index.html

8. Administration or attempted administration to any athlete in-competition of any prohibited method or prohibited substance, or administration or attempted administration to any athlete out-of-competition of any prohibited method or any prohibited substance that is prohibited out-of-competition, or assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up or any other type of complicity involving an Anti-Doping Rule Violation or any attempted Anti-Doping Rule Violation.

[binman 38,398]

We were only wrong to suppose there was even the merest modicum of integrity about the tribunal. There wasnt.

The AFL picked three lapdogs and got there farce across the line.

Let loose the hounds....real ones with an appetite for fairness and justice.

If this stands I can hardly be bothered with footy....even for my beloved Dees.

You can't countenance an argument they simply did their job and based on the evidence were unable to conclude, to their comfortable satisfaction, the players were administered a banned drug?

Or perhaps you have seen all the evidence?

Guilty people go free. It happens in courts and tribunals all over the world.

[ManDee 7,089]

[dpositive 1,547]

Thanks HH. My email To: WADA CC: ASADA

In Australia the Australian Rules Football (AFL) competition has allowed a club (Essendon FC) and its athletes to get away with using PED's.

Evidence establishes that the club (EFC) ordered and paid for thousands of injections of performance enhancing drugs. Indepenent inspectors called it a pharmacological experiment. An AFL tribunal have found the players not guilty.

Intent to use PED's is an offence under the WADA code.

What is WADA going to do to stop drug cheats in sport?

It is imperative that drug cheats are banned from sport.

Yours,

xxxxxxxxxxx

Sports lover.

http://www.asada.gov.au/rules_and_violations/index.html

8. Administration or attempted administration to any athlete in-competition of any prohibited method or prohibited substance, or administration or attempted administration to any athlete out-of-competition of any prohibited method or any prohibited substance that is prohibited out-of-competition, or assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up or any other type of complicity involving an Anti-Doping Rule Violation or any attempted Anti-Doping Rule Violation.

Would change the first line to read that the AFL were not comfortably satisfied that players were administered a banned drug.

[binman 38,398]

Some more intellectual brilliance form Slobbo (who writes as if he has been personally vindicated):

'Some will try to argue “insufficient evidence’’ doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It is the defence of the desperate'

Hilarious article (check the smug grin of Warner)

[Redleg 37,655]

This is just staggering. It makes one questions one faith in the AFL and it makes you wonder if our system (I don't mean the AFL, I mean the capitalist system we live under) is fair.

How can a club that:

1) Self reported due to an off site injection program.

2) Had a review of it's internal practices by the former director of Telstra which concluded that it was running a 'pharmacologically experimental environment'.

3) Had it's senior coach stood down for 12 months, it's assistant fined $30,000, it's football boss suspended for 6 months,

4) Was fined 2.1 million for said off site injection program.

5) Has fought the ASADA and the AFL tooth and nail to make sure the case wasn't even heard with a lot of their arguments not being about whether said events ever happened but more about the legality of and technicalities surrounding the investigation.

6) Had two of the main architects of the regime not even take the stand due to fears they would incriminate themselves (or in Charter's case, get bashed)

now be found to have not done anything wrong, period.

When it says this decision makes you lose your faith in the AFL and society in general it is for two reasons. The first is that a certain person, who can only be described as a sociopath and a narcissist, has gotten his way. If St. James had come out and said that the injecting regime never happened at all and that was what he was basing his case on then I have no problem with him. However, he has never said that, doesn't have the documentation to prove otherwise and has continued to obfuscate and pettifog the issue which today has made him look the way he always has wanted to be perceived (without sin). All the while, a CEO, a club president and a premiership winning coach have all been forced to fall on their swords for the good of the club. Why hasn't the Golden Boy been forced to take any culpability at all? Oh that's right! He was suspended for a year! All the while taking a paid vacation in bloody France with his job waiting for him when he got back. In the meantime as well, the Essendon board has been superseded by the James Hird fan club. This is not to mention the players in this. We still have no idea what they have been injected with? What might happen to them 20 years down the track? After this trial is over, I can see James Hird and Essendon suing the AFL to retrieve costs and using this trial as the basis of their litigation.

The above example just goes to show that if you have enough money and profile and you completely lack a sense of shame (though this can be compensated for by the size of your ego), justice is irrelevant. Just shout, spin and dig into your wallet deep enough and the truth can walk in and out of a court without being recognized.

The second thing that annoys me is that this shows that the AFL needs to do an in depth review of itself and not just into how this fiasco took place. How can it fine a club 2 million dollars on one occasion for running a hazardous injecting program then 1 year later run another trial (conducted under the umbrella of the AFL yet again) on whether the players took a prohibited substance and come up with a duck egg? Can anyone see my confusion here? So they ran a hazardous and experimental injecting regime that no one was harmed by and the results are all tiggety boo? I get the first trial was about how the club was run and the second was about if the players had injected prohibited substances but there is a huge discrepancy in the punishments between the first hearing (multi-million dollar fines and suspensions) and the second (everyone walks away scot free). Remember as well that the AFL tipped off Essendon that they were going to be investigated by ASADA which shows the depth of their incompetence.

For years and years, up until the time of Ross Oakley, we have been force fed back slapping AFL propaganda. We have constantly heard about how the standards our game abides by is so much higher than that of those no-necks up in NSW and Queensland who play that heathen code of bum sniffing and then we see that it's biggest club has been involved in a co-ordinated injecting program in which the paperwork cannot be located and Gary Pert warns the code that there is an ongoing drugs problem in the AFL and the off field behavior of some players becomes volcanic in the off-season . We were told about how closing stadiums in the suburbs where there was a genuine sense of camaraderie amongst those who attended was necessary in order to 'grow the game' and then we wonder why most games are mostly sterile affairs where supporter engagement is close to nil and why certain clubs get financially hosed on their stadium deals. We get told that a club in Western Sydney is required and then see 5000 people turn up to their games, 3/4s of their off field staff leave in the space of 3 years and all this despite the AFL being told by a senate committee that establishing a team there would never work. It's time for the head wobblers in the AFL to have a bloody good hard at look at themselves.

Colin, while I admit I was wrong on my prediction, I have learned more today and can, I think, answer your questions pretty simply.

Essendon ran a supplements program that according to the AFL and their own admitted report, was a shambles. They were dealt with by the AFL for their lack of Governance.

The Players were charged with attempting to, or actually using, banned substances.

The Tribunal had to reach a stage of comfortable satisfaction of guilt. It didn't.

Why not you ask? Answer: because the evidence led by ASADA was unsworn, unsigned, not given before the tribunal orally and therefore not able to be properly scrutinised or tested.

The Players would have given evidence that they didn't intend to take anything illegal, that they were told what they took was legal and that they basically didn't know absolutely what was injected into them.

That then leads to only one conclusion when the ramifications are so serious and that is, that the Prosecution evidence can't be relied on and therefore the Tribunal doesn't get to a Comfortable Satisfaction of guilt.

Were Charters, Alavi, etc got at and told not to comply or just protected their own position, maybe/probably.

I now think that ASADA may consider not even appealling.

[Jaded No More 58,070]

All I wanna say on the matter is that if this was Melbourne, they'd shut us down

How fun it is to be a powerful club!

[Lucifers Hero 37,090]

Colin, while I admit I was wrong on my prediction, I have learned more today and can, I think, answer your questions pretty simply.

Essendon ran a supplements program that according to the AFL and their own admitted report, was a shambles. They were dealt with by the AFL for their lack of Governance.

The Players were charged with attempting to, or actually using, banned substances.

The Tribunal had to reach a stage of comfortable satisfaction of guilt. It didn't.

Why not you ask? Answer: because the evidence led by ASADA was unsworn, unsigned, not given before the tribunal orally and therefore not able to be properly scrutinised or tested.

Oh My Goodness! You mean the witnesses were silenced !!

[CHF 2,607]

I can see the logic of the not guilty decision. While the evidence may well track and place the illegal drugs into the club and into Dank's hands there was not enough evidence to satisfy the tribunal that it was injected into the players. As to intent, well the players may have had no intention to take PEDs and were mislead as to what they were being given.

An appeal by ASADA to the tribunal will depend upon new evidence being introduced as I understand the rules of the tribunal and therefore if there is no new evidence available then there will not be an appeal by ASADA. WADA may take it straight to CAS but remember that this is a case against just the players and Dank, not the club. Therefore, an appeal can only be lodged on the case against the players.

Now if Dank is sanctioned then what is the position of Essendon as a club and what is the mechanism for punishing the guilty parties? The club has been punished for bad governance not for any drug offences.

[chookrat 3,776]

This is no capitalist problem. Demetriou was a left wing dictator. The AFL is not free market there are salary cap restrictions, draft concessions etc... Me thinks you are just anti capitalist and find reason to hate capitalism wherever you look.

Correct, capitalism is not the problem but rather power, morals and ethics. We've seen assholes operating in all forms of government.

[Guest]

Colin, while I admit I was wrong on my prediction, I have learned more today and can, I think, answer your questions pretty simply.

Essendon ran a supplements program that according to the AFL and their own admitted report, was a shambles. They were dealt with by the AFL for their lack of Governance.

The Players were charged with attempting to, or actually using, banned substances.

The Tribunal had to reach a stage of comfortable satisfaction of guilt. It didn't.

Why not you ask? Answer: because the evidence led by ASADA was unsworn, unsigned, not given before the tribunal orally and therefore not able to be properly scrutinised or tested.

The Players would have given evidence that they didn't intend to take anything illegal, that they were told what they took was legal and that they basically didn't know absolutely what was injected into them.

That then leads to only one conclusion when the ramifications are so serious and that is, that the Prosecution evidence can't be relied on and therefore the Tribunal doesn't get to a Comfortable Satisfaction of guilt.

Were Charters, Alavi, etc got at and told not to comply or just protected their own position, maybe/probably.

I now think that ASADA may consider not even appealling.

This is naive of me to think this but the idealistic side of me hates this decision. I know what probably happened but it annoys me no end.

[Wrecker45 3,378]

I now think that ASADA may consider not even appealling.

ASADA can't challenge. On SEN they're saying ASADA had internal advise that there was insufficient evidence to even issue Show Cause notices. WADA might challenge because the whole thing is the shambles but the whole thing has been so poorly managed I don't think they would get a different result.

WorkCover are coming to get Essendon.

[Sir Why You Little 34,554]

I am very angry.

Supporting the AFL is going to be difficult from now on

WADA better keep up the fight.

[biggestred 4,315]

Why not you ask? Answer: because the evidence led by ASADA was unsworn, unsigned, not given before the tribunal orally and therefore not able to be properly scrutinised or tested.

Wow. This is the first time ive thought asada to be useless but if that is true then they are beyond useless.

[dees189227 10,806]

I knew they would get off. But was hoping something would have been found. I guess the thing is and i think i heard right that ASADA didnt have evidence of it in there systems, they just heard about the program. Well my question is what the hell were they injected with. Have they actually been told what was injected or just told hey it wont hurt you.

Golden boy Turd is about to speak. He will be gloating and im not going to watch any news or the footy show because I dont want to hear sam newman go on about it.

Times like this i wish i lived in a non footy state. Robinson and warner will be jumping around with glee. pluss all the essendon fans. I hope the swans smash them

[beelzebub 22,225]

amen brother

[bing181 8,169]

Colin, while I admit I was wrong on my prediction, I have learned more today and can, I think, answer your questions pretty simply.

...

Thanks for that Redleg.

Have to say it's odd. My understanding is that a Tribunal isn't held to the same standards of evidence as in a criminal court, and doesn't necessarily need sworn evidence. Clearly though, if that evidence was only given minimal weight, then the case falls over - basically on a legal technicality, but so be it, it's a quasi-legal framework.

Be that as it may, does anyone know whether or not CAS can subpoena witnesses? I know that at the CAS, the case starts over again from scratch/zero, but if key evidence can't be admitted because it can't be sworn or cross-examined, then hard to see any appeal being successful.

Also, just shows how high the bar actually is for "comfortable satisfaction" in the case of non-presence ADRV's. Impossible to make stick without eye-witness accounts and/or confessions?

[beelzebub 22,225]

possible HH but nothing is certain.

how truly you have spoken Ernest !!

[jnrmac 19,007]

Looking at the bigger picture, this is actually a massive slap in the face to ASADA and WADA and Australia's reputation and a 'clean' sporting nation. And throw in the integrity of world sport (and no I don't think this is an over reaction).

There is a huge amount of global interest in this and WADA and the Australian government should be very concerned that a tribunal of the code has come to this decision. A bit like Cycling and Lance Armstrong where a code will not call out itself for fear of damaging the hand that feeds it.

What is not in disupte is this:

They ran a sophisticated, systematic and clinical supplements regime that they had no records of and involved thousands of injections to players and staff.

The people in charge of administering this were unqualified

The club Doctor had no oversight

Some of the substances they have admitted to using were not approved for human consumption

There appeared to be no records kept

The players did not fail a doping test but had an extraordinary and unprecedented soft tissue injury rate that is symptomatic of peptides and human growth hormone use

The players put on massive amounts of bulk over a pre-season

They self-reported

The world will laugh whenever Australia says we are a clean nation.

The world will laugh at our holier-than-thou stance when other countries are found guilty of doping.

The lessons are simply this:

Don't keep records

Don't fail a drug test

Wade Lees must be really farked off.

[Qwerty30 196]

Colin, while I admit I was wrong on my prediction, I have learned more today and can, I think, answer your questions pretty simply.

Essendon ran a supplements program that according to the AFL and their own admitted report, was a shambles. They were dealt with by the AFL for their lack of Governance.

The Players were charged with attempting to, or actually using, banned substances.

The Tribunal had to reach a stage of comfortable satisfaction of guilt. It didn't.

Why not you ask? Answer: because the evidence led by ASADA was unsworn, unsigned, not given before the tribunal orally and therefore not able to be properly scrutinised or tested.

The Players would have given evidence that they didn't intend to take anything illegal, that they were told what they took was legal and that they basically didn't know absolutely what was injected into them.

That then leads to only one conclusion when the ramifications are so serious and that is, that the Prosecution evidence can't be relied on and therefore the Tribunal doesn't get to a Comfortable Satisfaction of guilt.

Were Charters, Alavi, etc got at and told not to comply or just protected their own position, maybe/probably.

I now think that ASADA may consider not even appealling.

Good summary Redleg. I don't like the outcome. The major reason is that it gives a Little Hird and Reid a sense of misguided self righteousness.

And I think you are probably right on ASADA too. I am not sure ASADA has additional/new evidence to put to justify an appeal. And if they do have it why wasn't it tabled earlier?

[deefrag 277]

Winners are grinners . . . . . .