And, relevantly, Essendon has clearly been punished for what appears to be extremley poor governance. Lost draft picks, coach suspended, stripped of finals appearance etc.

How this investigation has taken so long without any proper evidence is simply amazing to me.

I actually think ASADA should be investigated. Stunning incompetence.

So you've seen the tribunal's full decision?

And you've conducted this sort of investigation ... so frequently that you don't even need to sift through the material evidence of what ASADA did to reach your conclusion?

Oh, and for someone who's bored by all this you're still throwing in more than your two bob's worth.

How can one player get off because a tribunal "isn't comfortably satisfied" that he took a supplement while another player gets two years when everyone fully accepts that he didn't!?!

ASADA and WADA will appeal this decision, if that piece of [censored] Adrian Bayley, Jill Meagher's killer, appealed his decision, you better believe these guys will.

It all comes down to Dank, Alavi & Charter.

They refused to give evidence for a reason....

This to me in crux. I understand due process and the necessity to prove cases....but geez.

- We have a medical regime where records weren't kept. Without any knowledge or insight I find that no records were kept spectacularly hard to believe. ( I suspect a shredder got one hell of a workout) - but taking it at face value that records weren't kept - this raises a huge matzo ball of a question - why weren't records kept ? The answer seems fairly obvious

- we have three central figures refusing to give evidence - why did they refuse to give evidence - again the answer appears obvious .

How can one player get off because a tribunal "isn't comfortably satisfied" that he took a supplement while another player gets two years when everyone fully accepts that he didn't!?!

Wade Lees was done for attempting to take a banned substance.

Perhaps, if he fought the case, on the basis that he would have checked with ASADA before taking the substance and that if banned, he wouldn't have taken it, then there would have been no attempt to take it, which is what he apparently got done for.

Just trying to think laterally.

ASADA and WADA will appeal this decision, if that piece of [censored] Adrian Bayley, Jill Meagher's killer, appealed his decision, you better believe these guys will.

I agree that the decision will be appealed ( or at least should be appealed) but I am not sure how you can link Adrian Bayley with this ?

This to me in crux. I understand due process and the necessity to prove cases....but geez.

- We have a medical regime where records weren't kept. Without any knowledge or insight I find that no records were kept spectacularly hard to believe. ( I suspect a shredder got one hell of a workout) - but taking it at face value that records weren't kept - this raises a huge matzo ball of a question - why weren't records kept ? The answer seems fairly obvious

- we have three central figures refusing to give evidence - why did they refuse to give evidence - again the answer appears obvious .

There can only be one answer

My hope is WADA can make these parties speak under oath. If it doesn't happen then Essendon will be always be under a black cloud.

The joy from Essendon supporters i am hearing today is just so wrong. Not one of them actually cares that this shonky trio have all refused to speak.

Hird has known Charters for over a decade. That we do know.

I am starting to think that ASADA won't appeal as they didn't have the evidence in the manner needed.

An AFL Appeals Tribunal might come to the same conclusion.

I think that maybe if there is to be an Appeal, it will be by WADA, taking the heat off ASADA and going to CAS, a different type and fully independent body.

This to me in crux. I understand due process and the necessity to prove cases....but geez.

- We have a medical regime where records weren't kept. Without any knowledge or insight I find that no records were kept spectacularly hard to believe. ( I suspect a shredder got one hell of a workout) - but taking it at face value that records weren't kept - this raises a huge matzo ball of a question - why weren't records kept ? The answer seems fairly obvious

- we have three central figures refusing to give evidence - why did they refuse to give evidence - again the answer appears obvious .

Correct Nut and the players to this day do not know what they were injected with. Their future health in jeopardy or at very least at risk, all in all a damning situation.

Hope ASADA doesn't appeal and everyone can now move on.

Lessons have been learnt. Carrying on with this will prove/achieve nothing.

Also - it's just boring. I'd like the AFL community to get back to discussing the footy, not this stuff.

Only problem Ron is that we may now play against clubs or with, players with performance enhancing drugs ingested, or injected as long as the records of the substance is lost or obtained from a character who wont appear before any investigating body.

Essendon supporters are just unbelievable. "Just so proud of the boys". They feel like they were vindicated and they did nothing wrong. Stuff the haters, #donthesash etc etc.

Remember when all of us Melbourne supporters took to social media to gloat about getting away with tanking? Yeah me neither.

The rhetoric coming out of Essendon and its supoorters has gone beyond the point of ridiculous. It conjures up post-war images of crying and hugging in the street the way they are carrying on.

This is a dirty business. It is clear we have Liars (pronounced Lawyers) cheats and it seems bribery running the show to rort the system.

Moose Henwood is being held up as prince of the courts when he probably wouldnt have stepped into the county court before.

Then there are those with their snouts in the trough.

It irks me that the legal fraternity now see "fashioning a defense" instead of getting to the truth of the matter as a normal way to apply their trade.

http://t.co/ay7ACQOKzX

Whatley gets it. Kinda.

11 players say they were injected with thymosin.

Charter and alavi say they gave thymosin to dank.

The tribunal agreed that the only thymosin in question was tb4.

They failed to join the dot.

Wada need to appeal and subpoena dank to tell us exactly what he did with the tb4.

I am starting to think that ASADA won't appeal as they didn't have the evidence in the manner needed.

An AFL Appeals Tribunal might come to the same conclusion.

I think that maybe if there is to be an Appeal, it will be by WADA, taking the heat off ASADA and going to CAS, a different type and fully independent body.

Theres a methodology and protocol.

WADA have seen the shambles that passes for accountability here and will remove any further proceedings to a 'proper' repose.

imhi..Wada will just bidw its time as it has to then it will get very serious about "correcting " things

The entire thing has been handled in an unbelievably amateurish way.

I don't have any affection for Essendon, although it seems to me that many of the views expressed here are based more on emotion and bias, than upon critical thinking or evidence-based analysis.

Dont know that I can agree with that.

The amount of money outlayed by all parties is certainly not an amateur affair. No poor individual or amateur could afford the defences that have been identified let alone those maybe lost with other records.

While there may be some emotion my bias is for critical thinking. I certainly understand the limitations of evidence based analysis which does necessarily demand rigour and thoroughness.

A bit of critical thinking leads to

perhaps a lowering of the bar on drugs in sport.

I would think the players complicity in the story would mean they would have no legitimate workcover claim should any unsavoury health impacts arise. There is no proof of any unsafe practice.

Anticipate the players provident fund may expanded to support any such event funded through the AFL and TV rights.

Gill admits there are questions that will never be answered, which defies the persistence of human behaviour. Someone will crack asthey did with Lance Armstrong. Follow the money that will be the ultimate answer.

Ben McDevitt media conference at 11am

The most poignant thing I heard yesterday was during the players press conference led by Jobe Watson. Twice he was asked if he knew which substances he was injected with. Twice he refused to answer. He either genuinely doesn't know which is astonishing and for me and I think most sports lovers is more than enough given all the other circumstantial evidence to require player sanctions of some kind OR he does know that what he was given was a banned substance so of course he protects himself by lying. In an environment where records are kept about everything to do with players training, health, wellness and performance, the fact there is no record is an obvious cover up of wrong doing.

All sporting clubs in Australia now have a blueprint to follow is so inclined of how to dope your players and for the most part get away with.

reading the Hun this morning is like a bad April Fools Day joke. Truly a sickening revulsion awaits the uninitiated. For those of you who have not picked up this abhorrent little rag. One word of advice. DONT.

Im thinking asada will apoeal ( unsuccessfully ) paving way for Wada.

I'm not sure Justice Jones deserves the criticism he is getting on here. Without putting up the links to various articles this morning, it appears he was 'frustrated' by the Supreme Court decision to not allow key witnesses to attend/give evidence to the Tribunal. While in the end he allowed that unsworn evidence, he couldn't give it sufficient weight. So, maybe we should hold off on criticisms of him until more is known about the rationale for the judgement.

As I mentioned in an earlier post (#7) today, the only way to really clear the air for all Australian sports is for ASADA to now bow out and WADA appeal to CAS. WADA have stated they will wait till local processes have run their course, which I expect will be as soon as ASADA announce it will not appeal. Within a few hours of that announcement, I bet WADA will hold a press conf to say it will appeal (that timing is needed to stop the local press going into an ecstatic state of hubris on ASADA 'backing off').

The players were never going to be convicted Jack!

ASADA and a supplicant AFL used the process but it was in no bodys' interest to make the charges stick.

Just typical of modern practice where everybody wants to SEEM to be tough on drugs but when given the opportunity to make a strong example the effects on the business / club/code becomes more important. ASADA are obviousely incompetent to think that they could be successful without real evidence

I agree with you that this decision in no way exonerates EFC I believe most football supporters think that the club and the players did the wrong thing and that they have now "got away with it".

Very, very poor outcome that sends all sorts of wrong messages.

The game is far from over. It has to get past ASADA appeal and then WADA. I have no doubt WADA will appeal, and win in CAS which operates under a very different basis. A technicality won't cut it there.

ASADA presser live in a few minutes

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-04-01/live-asada-makes-its-call

I am starting to think that ASADA won't appeal as they didn't have the evidence in the manner needed.

An AFL Appeals Tribunal might come to the same conclusion.

I think that maybe if there is to be an Appeal, it will be by WADA, taking the heat off ASADA and going to CAS, a different type and fully independent body.

The AFL appeals tribunal will come to the same conclusion. CAS won't though....

On reading this, I am more certain than ever before that the Essendon players ingested the illegal supplement TB4 (and possibly other prohibited substances) and that the Tribunal ruled in favour of the players on a technicality

Jack this could be a watershed moment for the legal system in this country. A lawyer complaining a verdict because of a legal technicality! I'd suggest you represent the large majority of people who I suspect would support the application of law without the distortion of legal technicality and agitate for change. You'll fight most of your brothers because it seems to me the law lives and breaths on technicality.

But on with my point. Essendon have been found to have administered a shambolic supplements program to its players which has the potential to have future negative health issues. They bypassed a qualified medical practitioner in favour of a "sports scientist" who has no official qualifications. They are unable (bulldust) to tell anyone what was injected into these kids to whom they owe an undeniable duty of care. They have treated these kids like objects whose health is irrelevant when put in the context of on field success.

Where the *f* are the criminal charges against those that were responsible for these kids and those administered the drugs. What I don't understand is that it's illegal to inject drugs to induce death regardless that the recipient might welcome the administration but at this stage Dank can go around giving young kids drugs that are not approved for human use with unknown effects and get off unscathed. Surely he is guilty of some criminal code.

It's vile and disgusting that Hird is still in the football industry let alone the coach of an AFL team.

I know people on this thread have said it's a win for Dank, Alavi and Charter but it's not. And it's a huge loss for Essendon. As WJ said, Essendon got of on a technicality and the whole footy world knows it. The club has failed to recognize the level of angst in which they are held and the fact there is anyone still there who was involved in overseeing or implementing the supplements program beggars belief.

Oh, and as an aside, can someone tell me how these performance enhancing drugs were not picked up in a drug test of the players. I find that odd.

The AFL appeals tribunal will come to the same conclusion. CAS won't though....

I read exactly these sort of comments for 2 years saying Essendon were toast. It's just a dumb comment. Sorry, but it is.