THE DRUG SCANDAL: AFL TRIBUNAL DECIDES

[Alf Stewart 73]

lets face it. It is 100% in AFL's interests not to ban players.

AFL Tribunal findings 2 days before season. perfect timing for fallot before matches start and people forget.

AFL pretends to be impartial.

AFLTribunal finds them Not Guilty... Yeah right.

If it was Melb we would have been rolled.

I hope it goes to appeal so impartiallity is not an issue.

[Whispering_Jack 27,970]

The point at which you know that guilt is established beyond all reasonable doubt ~

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says ASADA AFL doping scandal was overblown

Happy Easter and Passover to all.

[sue 8,430]

You're focusing heavily on the 'comfortable satisfaction' phrase and your perception that the Tribunal misapplied it. You haven't seen the reasons so you can't actually know they misapplied it, but .....

T_U: In your criticisms of other posters views you make the bolded point. The same comment applies to you I presume. None of us know, but we can all offer opinions.

One thing we all agree on is that EFC behaved outrageously. The extent to which all or some players were complicit and how clearly that is proven or otherwise is disputed. But even if one believes that the level of proof was insufficient, I think most of us have a strong gut feeling (or call it experience of life and human foibles) that at least some of the players are guilty at the very least that they deliberately closed their eyes and covered their ears.

[ManDee 7,077]

Good pick up. But irrelevant. Here's the full the quote from WADA's own guidelines:

Does intent matter when it comes to an anti-doping rule violation?

As noted before, you are responsible – “strictly liable” – for anything and everything in your system. To establish an anti-doping rule violation for use or presence of a prohibited substance, it is not necessary to demonstrate intent, fault, negligence or knowing use on your part.

It is not a defense to an anti-doping rule violation that, for instance, someone in your entourage or camp gave you a substance; or that a banned substance was not listed on a product label; or that a prohibited substance or method would not have improved your performance.

If you use or try to use a prohibited substance or method, that is doping.

(From the WADA Athlete Reference Guide, 2015).

Same for the Essendon players. It's clear they made no attempt to check that the product/s were/are legal, because by their own admission "we don't know what we took". So how could they have ensured that the products were legal?

You're just wrong here ManDee. If you're an athlete and you go to your doctor for a vitamin shot and s/he gives you TB4, and the doctor then confesses to ASADA that they gave you TB4, then you're guilty of an ADRV, whether you intended to or not - and whether you test positive for it or not.

Penalties would be reduced, or even not applied - but you'd still be guilty.

3 things

1 If I was wrong the players would have been found guilty.

2 No one has come out and stated that they injected an illegal substance into the players.

3 The players are responsible for what goes into their bodies, prove what that was.

[What 18,810]

The point at which you know that guilt is established beyond all reasonable doubt ~

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says ASADA AFL doping scandal was overblown

Happy Easter and Passover to all.

And nobody is surprised

Of course that clown is going to try and sweep it all under the carpet

[jackaub 1,402]

Let's be crystal clear about this. WADA has been intimately involved in this case from the beginning. It is significant that McDevitt at his press conference made a point of saying he had a lengthy telephone conference with them on Tuesday night following the bringing down of the initial verdict. This presumably was not to talk about the weather! My guess is that WADA and ASADA have had a long term strategy worked out for sometime and the moves in the last day or so are just the initial skirmishes in that strategy. I have said for sometime this will eventually go to CAS, and it will. WADA is the only organisation which can take it there.

You are presuming that ASADA is well informed professional organisation that is well run and has at its core the elimination of drugs in sport.

However what we actually appear to have is an overreactive poorly run bunch or public servants whos core is the satisfaction of their two -bit political masters

If you take the politics out of it ASADA probably wouldnt have launched the investiagtion or wouldn't have proceeded with the amount of eveidence that they were able to gather

[What 18,810]

Here's a link to the test for Thymosin Beta 4 that's currently in development

http://www.uscnk.com/uscn/ELISA-Kit-for-Thymosin-Beta-4-%28Tb4%29-28284.htm

Edited April 2, 2015 by hogans_heroes

[deanox 8,582]

It's also relevant to the offence of 'attempted use'. In the note under Article 2.2 the WADA Code says the following:

Demonstrating the Attempted Use of a Prohibited Substance or a Prohibited Method requires proof of intent on the Athletes part.

It follows that if you don't intend to use the banned substance, you can't have attempted to use it.

This makes sense policy-wise. The purpose of the Use/Attempted Use offence is to catch people who don't test positive. It's the fall back - if you don't get a test but you can show they used it, or failing that, that they tried to use it, then you can still get them, but that's all it's there for. Wade Lees intended to use the substance he was done for. The intent was non-contentious. For the Essendon players there is no evidence they intended to use TB4 aside, potentially, from the waiver forms. No surprise then that no charge was laid for Attempted Use.

Wade Lees said he did not know the was banned substance in the product he ordered.

The players signed for thymosin and 11 recsll specifically receiving thymosin injections but none can provide any further information about what "thymosin" is.

IMO there isn't much difference there, for those who signed waivers and definitely not for the 11.

The Tribunal found that Dank intended to import TB4.

The Tribunal found there was no evidence of any other "thymosin" ever ordered or on premises.

Players were then injected with a substance Dank believed was TB4 and told players was "thymosin".

If this isn't "attempted use", I dint know what is.

[Dees2014 2,377]

You are presuming that ASADA is well informed professional organisation that is well run and has at its core the elimination of drugs in sport.

However what we actually appear to have is an overreactive poorly run bunch or public servants whos core is the satisfaction of their two -bit political masters

If you take the politics out of it ASADA probably wouldnt have launched the investiagtion or wouldn't have proceeded with the amount of eveidence that they were able to gather

Sorry but rubbish. ASADA have been subject to a lengthy and extremely expensive PR campaign designed amoungst other things to discredit it and get it to back off. And when it didn't, they have arranged a media whispering campaign which can be summed up as "isn't it time to move on?" "Enough is enough".

And you know what? It has nearly worked. How do I know? Because I have have been involved in corporate PR campaigns in a number of parts of the world at senior levels, and I know exactly what techniques are used. It ranges from using governments to denude them of resources when they were under most demand for their services as both the Gillard and Abbott governments have done and then pronounce them as incompetent; arranging for "credible" public figures to pronounce on various aspects of the investigation eg Abbott, Alan Jones ( not that he is credible, but he is influential), Andrews, numerous media people - effectively saying ASADA is incompetent when they clearly are not (if you don't believe me ask WADA who regard them along with USADA as the best country affiliates they have); tying up the investigations in the courts and then criticising it for taking so long; destroying evidence, and then pleading innocence; organising bipartisan political pressure, and I don't only mean political parties - the pressure has come from certainly politicans, but also parts of business, unions, senior media people, even state governors; organising "fronts" made up of seemingly dispassionate people but funded and coached by the campaign; identifying tame "academics" who are sympathic to the cause, and them placing them as unbiased "expertise" to give "dispassionate" analysis in general news items; orgaising sympathic academics to write "dispassionate" studies and have these publicised as news as though they are objective and credible.

It has been an organised, extremely cynical but very professional and clever campaign. Many of these same techniques are used by big tobacco, and are currently been used by the fossil fuel industry to discredit climate science, as well as the mining industry to destroy thoroughly legitimate resources taxes. They were also used by Armstrong in the US against USADA - it took four years with the help of WADA to eventually catch him, but catch him they did, and there were very many red faces as a result.

We are very fortunate that we have people like McDevitt, who have the experience, knowhow and the balls to stand up to these people, and he also knows at the end of the day that if all else fails, WADA can come over the top of all this and be the incorruptible umpire.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the "good guys" win, and they will here.

Edited April 3, 2015 by Dees2014

[SaberFang 7,141]

Of course Abbott would be spruiking the Murdoch line. He's nothing more than a puppet to Rupert's monopolisation plans for us.

[ManDee 7,077]

Does anyone have any idea why Essendon have not been charged yet? Surely it would be easier to find them guilty.

[Dees2014 2,377]

Of course Abbott would be spruiking the Murdoch line. He's nothing more than a puppet to Rupert's monopolisation plans for us.

And the global head of News Corporation is a former Melbourne boy, and an Essendon fanatic, and one of the principle sources of business pressure in this campaign.

[Dees2014 2,377]

Does anyone have any idea why Essendon have not been charged yet? Surely it would be easier to find them guilty.

I suspect Essendon as a whole, and club officials like James Hird, will be charged when the case against the players is completed, but with Essendon it is likely to coincide with the initial findings from Worksafe Victoria. Combined I have no doubt this will be followed by a series of writs.

[Hulett Packard III 166]

And nobody is surprised

Of course that clown is going to try and sweep it all under the carpet

And it's the death sentence for an ASADA appeal because this bloke ultimately controls the purse strings. Indeed, vested interests and money have had a lot to do with this saga from the legal challenges all the way through to what some would suspect are the reasons why so many witnesses were not prepared to appear to give evidence in the case.

The best way to neutralise the influence of money and vested interests is for the case to be taken by WADA to CAS.

[titan_uranus 22,351]

Woah ... Hang on a minute:

Wade Lees attempted to use "a product". He didn't intend to use a banned substance. Identical to the players. They intended to use "a product" (whatever they were being injected with). They didn't intend to use a banned substance.

In both cases, ASADA's position was that the product was or contained a banned substance. Only difference was that in the Lees' case, ASADA had the product and could verify the constituents.

Also, getting into a really narrow definition of intent here that just doesn't apply in terms of the WADA code - this is very different from a criminal court and a case for attempted armed robbery or attempted GBH.

If you turn up to Dank's office at the appointed time to be injected with something that unbeknown to you is illegal, that's intent (you stepped into the office, intending to be injected). But even if you don't make it to that appointment because your car breaks down on the way, that's also intent (because you intended to have that injection). If ASADA intercept Dank's car as he drove into the Essendon car park with an Esky full of TB4 and a diary full of appointments with players for injections, that's intent (on the part of both the players and Dank.) If you place an on-line order for TB4 or CJC (http://www.maximpeptide.com/peptides/) but your shipment gets lost in the post, that's intent. If you place an on-line order for "GoFast" that is advertised as containing no illegal substances, but which ASADA stop at the border and discover is shot through with banned amphetamines, that's also intent.

You don't have to intend to take a banned substance. You just have to intend to carry out a course of action that would result in banned products entering your system - knowingly or not.

Though also not sure of its relevance here because the Essendon players did have injections, it's not just an intention to have those injections. Thus, there was no charge for attempted use because they actually used - unlike Wade Lees. No-one disputes the fact that the players were injected (with something).

Perhaps I'm missing something, but not sure why this is posing a problem for people.

I had a really long response to this written up but then the site crashed or something and I lost it all.

Essentially, I see a difference between Lees, who actively sought out the particular substance in question, and the Essendon players, who didn't. I agree that knowing the substance is banned is irrelevant, but the difference in my mind is clearer than in yours it seems. Lees formed the intent to use the particular substance he bought, and ASADA had no trouble showing that. But ASADA would IMO also have to show the players intended to use the particular substance in question, that being TB4, and I don't think they could do that.

The policy behind the attempted use offence, I think, is to stop those who intend to use banned substances but don't get far enough down the process to be caught using it. It follows, IMO, that you have to have formed an intent to use the particular thing which, if you used it, you'd be guilty of an offence for, and I don't think that is as clear with these players. I'm not as convinced as you are that it would be enough for ASADA to say 'they intended to be injected', I think the Code requires them to have intended to be injected with TB4, and I don't think they could have shown that.

Regardless, as you say, ASADA went after them for using, not attempting to use, probably because the injections happened to make it into their systems. But I don't think you're 100% right on the issue of intent and I think there is a difference between Lees and the players.

That's not how it works.

There's a presumption of innocence until your case is decided. At that stage, you can't be "not guilty", because there hasn't been a ruling on your guilt. Subsequently, once there has been a ruling, you're proved to be either guilty or not guilty.

You aren't proved innocent.

Or, as sharper minds than mine have put it ...

"The presumption of innocence is actually a misnomer. It is not considered evidence of the defendant's innocence, and it does not require that a mandatory inference favorable to the defendant be drawn from any facts in evidence."

The players have been found not guilty. They haven't been found innocent.

(FWIW, I accept that they're not guilty. I also accept the tribunal's verdict.)

We agree in substance but I don't agree where you say 'you're proven to be either guilty or not guilty'. They haven't been proven not guilty and you can't really be proven to be not guilty. The onus of proof wasn't on the players, they by definition don't do any 'proving'. They just haven't been proven guilty (i.e. ASADA couldn't show it), so they remain in the default position, which is that they are not guilty.

That's all a bit of a legal [censored], really.

T_U: In your criticisms of other posters views you make the bolded point. The same comment applies to you I presume. None of us know, but we can all offer opinions.

One thing we all agree on is that EFC behaved outrageously. The extent to which all or some players were complicit and how clearly that is proven or otherwise is disputed. But even if one believes that the level of proof was insufficient, I think most of us have a strong gut feeling (or call it experience of life and human foibles) that at least some of the players are guilty at the very least that they deliberately closed their eyes and covered their ears.

I don't disagree. None of us know exactly what happened.

That's why I find it very difficult to read people saying the Tribunal was corrupt, or the AFL planted people on the Tribunal, or the Tribunal misapplied the law, or anything along those lines. Simply put, no body knows anything to support any of that; all that we know is that the Tribunal wasn't satisfied that ASADA had made out the charges. That's a completely fair and defensible position on what we actually know so far. There's nothing fair or defensible about saying David Jones was the AFL's puppet.

I agree, Essendon is and, in my mind will always remain, a total disgrace and their 2012-2015 is a blight on this game. If you have a 'gut feel', so be it. Most of us do. But no one deserves to be punished, whether criminally or under the WADA Code, if the offence can't be proven, so I have no problem with a finding of not guilty if ASADA doesn't have the evidence to show otherwise.

[deefrag 277]

Do we have any detail of the charges ASADA have laid against Dank?

Is there a possibility that tribunal findings against Dank could lead

to charges against the Club and other "support" staff?

[DemonFrog 1,347]

And nobody is surprised

Of course that clown is going to try and sweep it all under the carpet

HH you are being unfair to clowns

[Dees2014 2,377]

I had a really long response to this written up but then the site crashed or something and I lost it all.

Essentially, I see a difference between Lees, who actively sought out the particular substance in question, and the Essendon players, who didn't. I agree that knowing the substance is banned is irrelevant, but the difference in my mind is clearer than in yours it seems. Lees formed the intent to use the particular substance he bought, and ASADA had no trouble showing that. But ASADA would IMO also have to show the players intended to use the particular substance in question, that being TB4, and I don't think they could do that.

The policy behind the attempted use offence, I think, is to stop those who intend to use banned substances but don't get far enough down the process to be caught using it. It follows, IMO, that you have to have formed an intent to use the particular thing which, if you used it, you'd be guilty of an offence for, and I don't think that is as clear with these players. I'm not as convinced as you are that it would be enough for ASADA to say 'they intended to be injected', I think the Code requires them to have intended to be injected with TB4, and I don't think they could have shown that.

Regardless, as you say, ASADA went after them for using, not attempting to use, probably because the injections happened to make it into their systems. But I don't think you're 100% right on the issue of intent and I think there is a difference between Lees and the players.

We agree in substance but I don't agree where you say 'you're proven to be either guilty or not guilty'. They haven't been proven not guilty and you can't really be proven to be not guilty. The onus of proof wasn't on the players, they by definition don't do any 'proving'. They just haven't been proven guilty (i.e. ASADA couldn't show it), so they remain in the default position, which is that they are not guilty.

That's all a bit of a legal [censored], really.

I don't disagree. None of us know exactly what happened.

That's why I find it very difficult to read people saying the Tribunal was corrupt, or the AFL planted people on the Tribunal, or the Tribunal misapplied the law, or anything along those lines. Simply put, no body knows anything to support any of that; all that we know is that the Tribunal wasn't satisfied that ASADA had made out the charges. That's a completely fair and defensible position on what we actually know so far. There's nothing fair or defensible about saying David Jones was the AFL's puppet.

I agree, Essendon is and, in my mind will always remain, a total disgrace and their 2012-2015 is a blight on this game. If you have a 'gut feel', so be it. Most of us do. But no one deserves to be punished, whether criminally or under the WADA Code, if the offence can't be proven, so I have no problem with a finding of not guilty if ASADA doesn't have the evidence to show otherwise.

Under the WADA code as applied by CAS, the offence does not need to be proven. It is up to the defendants to prove their innocence as under most European law.. A far harder hurdle to jump over, particularly in Essendon's and Hird's case, because the circumstantial case is so strong, and there is no objective test (at least for the time being) to prove it one way or the other. ASADA knows this, WADA knows this, Hird, Essendon and the AFL know this. That is why the PR campaign has been cranked up several notches since the initial decision in a desperate attempt to keep the case out of CAS.

Once a guilty verdict comes in from CAS, then the floodgates really will open up: from Worksafe, from the players effected, from officials. The court cases will go on for years.

[rjay 23,903]

The point at which you know that guilt is established beyond all reasonable doubt ~

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says ASADA AFL doping scandal was overblown

Happy Easter and Passover to all.

Talking to Alan Jones...well there's a couple intellectual giants for you.

[Sir Why You Little 34,443]

Just looked up the CAS Website and entered Essendon in the search engine

No results. I was suprised to say the least after 2 years...

I am not a legal expert as many are on here.

Should this be a concern?

[Dr John Dee 1,057]

Just looked up the CAS Website and entered Essendon in the search engine

No results. I was suprised to say the least after 2 years...

I am not a legal expert as many are on here.

Should this be a concern?

I'm not either but no it shouldn't be a concern since nothing to do with Essendon has yet to get to CAS's door. You might check the WADA site, but even then I doubt there'd be much yet.

[Redleg 37,576]

I don't think he is the sharpest tool in the shed, and I don't think he seriously wants his day in court. It is presumably a standard response to McDevitt's statements, and he probably thinks that the threat of legal action is both enough to shut him up and the opening of negotiations for settlement. I suspect (and hope) that he is wrong on both counts.

When you hear someone say " in the fullness of time all will be revealed" or " I can't wait to tell my side of the story", you know that nothing will be revealed and their story won't be told..

[Redleg 37,576]

Just looked up the CAS Website and entered Essendon in the search engine

No results. I was suprised to say the least after 2 years...

I am not a legal expert as many are on here.

Should this be a concern?

No.

[Dees2014 2,377]

Just looked up the CAS Website and entered Essendon in the search engine

No results. I was suprised to say the least after 2 years...

I am not a legal expert as many are on here.

Should this be a concern?

They are not on their website because their official involvement has not started yet. That will not happen until their local affiliate, ASADA, has completed their role in this ie the appeal against the not guilty verdict to the AFL appeals tribunal. After that is handed down , and I have no doubt that will be "not guilty" also (unless the AFL decides they might be able to get away with a light sentence from the AFL Appeals Tribunal and avoid CAS - fat chance!), then WADA has 21 days to appeal to CAS. It is then their role will become official. That is not to say they are not involved in an informal way with the ASADA strategy. I would expect them to be intimately involved in that.

[Sir Why You Little 34,443]

Thanks for the clarification

I do hope this goes to WADA & CAS

The arrogance and blind faith shown by the Essendon Hird mentality must be obliterated !