Dees2014

Well where does this leave us? I suggest that the issues canvassed earlier in this post regarding the coaching of witnesses being schooled by the EFC/Hird PR machines (so criticised by some on here) are coming into stark reality. Their testimonies are remarkably consistent, even in their lying. Well what a surprise, and what a surprise too (not) that WADA picked it up and the CAS Arbitrators recognise it. In this, we have to be aware that all this is orchestrated: WADA will have deliberately leaked this to Caro who has duly reported it. It will have made the HIRD/AFL wall go into free fall, and helped prepare the football public for the inevitable guilty verdict. Interesting though the the last line about everyone being upbeat about the outcome. I suggest a straight plant from the AFL PR department - Liz Lukin at her finest!

If that were so, the submissions would be from the defence counsel representing the players, and WADA representing the prosecution. The AFL has no official part in these proceedings

No, and I don't know that anyone else outside the court does either. Remember, the AFL are not appearing at the court, CAS has not allowed them to be a party to the proceedings so I am not sure how they could request this unless it was through the players lawyers, which means about as much as a defence counsel in a murder trial requesting leniency. I am aware the AFL has said that is what the outcome should be but not sure how they could formally submit it to the court if they are not a party to it. As I am aware, and I am no legal expert, I understood the form is that CAS brings down their ruling and both WADA and the players counsels submit their pleas as to what the penalties there should be. Then CAS makes a ruling. Bluster from the AFL is just that - trying to influence the outcome from the outside, for their own PR reasons, and making themselves appear to be relevant.

Well Chris, just like High Court judges here, and Supreme Court judges in the US. So often driven by political prejudices, rather than the rigour of the law. That is why federal governments both here and in the US regard their right to appoint senior judges as a key way of cementing a political perspective into the fabric of the country long after they are turfed out of office. Why should the same sort of biases not be present in perhaps the most subjective emotion of all - an irrational bias towards a football team - almost the ultimate tribe. Hird played just this to its limits, and has caught up the head of the biggest newspaper group in the world, the premier and governor of Australia's second biggest state, numerous journos feeding from the snout of the AFL, and tens of thousands of loyal fans. All seriously misled, and yes continuously lied to. They deserve to go down, and they will.

The grounds for appeal to Swiss courts are very limited to procedural matters, so the CAS judgement will be final, fortunately, because it will find them all guilty.

Well it depends on the origins of the writers. Highly qualified lawyers, can be as prejudiced as anyone else - just look at the AFL Tribunal and the US Supreme Court. If the writer was a fanatical Dons supporter, anything is possible!

Rjay, I agree it was very sensible of CAS and WADA to play this very close to their chests. In fact that was a large part of the point of my post ie they are playing Essendon and the AFL very strategically, and in fact beating them hands down on this issue, contrary to the Hird and EFC propaganda, and their tame friends in the media. As far as the term "leak" is concerned, i agree it was a deliberate act on their behalf and therefore could not strictly be termed a leak. Maybe i should have put it in inverted commas, so i humbly apologise for being so slack!

I think we should all be very satisfied as to the progress of this case. Even though CAS was very secure and virtually nothing got out of the Sydney hearings, and WADA likewise closed ranks, and even my normally cooperative sources would do no more than confirm or deny when we were on the right track. They had clearly learnt well from the Armstrong case when they came up against very powerful and rich media and PR interests, and rightly feared a similar circus in Australia. Directly from those learnings, they skilfully were able to avoid the circus, which left the usual hacks with nothing to write about or complain about. I do though find the public utterances we have very very significant. We all remember when ASADA referred to WADA to make the decision to refer the case to refer the appeal case to CAS, and McDevitt came out very aggressively and very specifically as to why ASADA thought Hird and Essendon were guilty. This surprisingly did not alert Essendon and the AFL as to what was coming. "Blindsided" I think Little said at the time which is unbelievable given his extensive corporate experience. The next utterance relevant came a week before the deadline for the referral to CAS from none other than the former head of WADA. and ex premier of NSW John Fahey,and a member of the WADA inner circle. Fahey had this to say: "Essendon's behaviour though this was almost un-Australian. To effectively shoot the messenger, and prevent a proper examination of what everybody knows occurred and everybody knows that what occurred was, to say the least, strange if not a breach of anti-doping rules. It is still extraordinarily strange that players could be given thousands of needles, off site. Every attempt was made to prevent an independent tribunal examining all the facts. That has cost literally millions of dollars and put the future sporting careers of many young footballers in jeopardy. It should have been dealt with long ago, and that is the tragedy of the whole case that it wasn't allowed to proceed in a reasonable time to a proper conclusion.Clearly the case was taken to prevent the [AFL anti-doping tribunal] inquiry occurring, They sought injunctions to prevent any information gathered by ASADA being used for purposes of examining anti-doping rule violations. They sought injunctions through the Federal Court and then Hird appealed the original decision." Fahey all but said WADA were going to appeal, but when they did, Hird and EFC still maintained they were blindsided when the actual announcement was made. And now we have another carefully calibrated announcement from WADA, this time from their global head in Montreal, David Howman: WADA director-general David Howman has described how the most powerful anti-doping regulator framed its Court of Arbitration for Sport challenge of an AFL tribunal verdict that effectively cleared 34 players."Quite simply, if the BALCO cases had been decided under the principles followed by the AFL tribunal, none of the BALCO people would have been sanctioned. For us, the key issue [in appealing the AFL tribunal finding] was: can investigations be done in a way that BALCO and a whole lot of other previous cases were run? Or, is there going to be a significant change due to the way the AFL tribunal decided it? Because that would change the whole way that we put cases before courts. The standard of proof that was used in the cases that led to the first non-analytical sanctions [through BALCO] was quite different to the proof used in the AFL tribunal. So we are trying to find out what the correct standard is under the [WADA] Code.That puts it into perspective. It's a big principle." This to me goes to nub of why WADA describes this case as so globally significant, and one WADA simply has to win. Otherwise it changes their whole "modus operandi", and considerably weakens it. Of course what happened at Balco? - athletes were found guilty and athletes, officials, medical staff and coaches were suspended for long periods of time. I don't think Howman could have been any clearer just as Fahey could not have been. And make no mistake, this was a deliberate leak, one designed to prepare Essendon, the AFL and the wider Australian public for a considerable shock. At least there are still some people of integrity left in the world......

This just goes to prove there are still "tea partiest" crazies on this site. Where are you Tony Abbott?

I must say I thoroughly approve of this thread. Jack Trengove is not only a fantastic bloke, and leader, he when fit, is a fabulous footballer. Just the sort the MFC should be hanging on to (although I understand if he has a long term injury why he would be put on the market) JT in his first and second year showed he is a worthy pick 2, and we don't have many of those. His leadership is outstanding (I vividly remember in his first year when he through his vision and determination was personally responsible for us winning by a point in Darwin against PA, having sprinted half the ground to knock the ball through and score). I really hope he makes it, because at his best, he will be in the first 6 picked in our next premiership team.

no mystery - just that Essendon has in effect admitted guilt in the WorkCover (WC) case. They have not done that before, particularly not Hird. IMHO, it opens up the case considerably.

CAS is influencable right up until they table their findings. They after all are taking time now to "consider their verdict" to coin a phrase. Whether formal or informal, they could not fail to notice the WC activity.

Under the WADA code it does not matter whether you knew or consented. If you took illegal substances you are guilty, whether inadvertently or not. It is up to the individual to police this, and all professional athletes who practice under WADA rules have this drummed into them time and time again. No excuses -guilty! As far as the coaches, medical staff are concerned, they have a duty of care to their athletes which given the latest Workcover case this has clearly been breached. I can see substantial litigation stemming from that alone, never mind CAS. It is curious though that WC appears to have let them off so lightly. Any one who has had anything to do with Workcover wrt running a factory in Victoria knows how feral many of their inspectors are, often aided and abetted by unions. Everyone seems to have gone quiet on this one when it comes to Worksafe penalties. Curious, but I bet it has been noted by CAS.

I'm sure you are right that the AFL will not go after the hierarchy at Essendon, but should there be a guilty verdict from CAS for the players, I think it is very likely that most of the Essendon support staff will receive infraction notices, including Goodwin.

The first action by ASADA/WADA has to be to go after the players to establish there has been wrong doing. Their penalty is almost irrelevant, but I believe after their guilt is established I can't see how WADA rules will not be enforced and they will get 2 years (and lucky not to be 4 given the recent increases). Then ASADA/WADA will go after their real targets - those who perpetrated this illegal scheme, and like Armstrong they will get life bans, and so they should.

The AFL are quite entitled to advocate for the protection of the game as they see it, and clearly they see an absent Essendon or a greatly diminished Essendon as being high detrimental to both the economics and the health of AFL. football. No doubt they are right. WADA though has a responsibility for the integrity of world sport, and CAS is the umpire which adjudicates on their (WADA's) rules. They will have no interest in what the interests of the AFL are, or indeed whether this case will hurt the long term interests of the game itself. Their sole purpose is to try to keep world sport clean, and thank goodness for that. In the long term everyone benefits, including the AFL, aLthough clearly the AFL does not see that now.

This will be just the start of course. Based on the Armstrong precedent, the players will be found guilty and suspended for two years (with maybe a slight discount). ASADA will then issue infraction notices to the coaches and medical staff unfortunately probably including Goodwin. Penalties will be handed down by the AFL. WADA will object and appeal to CAS. Various legal actions will no doubt follow given Hird's and Reid's past proclivities so the whole circle will start again. "Blue Hills" has got nothing on this!

Yes Jack, I think this is symptomatic of how "head in the sand" the whole of the AFL industry has been right throughout this saga. I think they have thought all along that this will all be fixed by doing deals and that is why both Essendon and the AFL were seemingly blindsided by the WADA appeal to CAS. It was as if they were saying "you can't do this to the all powerful AFL!" I bet Jason Taylor's advice came from inside that closeted AFL establishment. They could hardly say anything else could they, otherwise their whole carefully built up trading system would collapse. The question I ask is where were the legal "hard heads" who were supposed to be looking after the interests of the MFC. If we could see two years ago that to have anything to do with Essendon and all those associated with the Hird regime was crazy, why couldn't they. I have written a number of times on here that we should never have engaged Goodwin, no matter how good a coach he is, and we certainly should not trade for any Essendon players of that era, until this is all cleared up. And it may not be for years given the litany of legal cases which are likely to follow CAS.

Id go first round side: B: Jetta. Frost Dunn HB: Lumumba McDonald. Salem CC: Vince. Jones. Brayshaw HF: Petracca. Hogan. Watts FF: Dawes. Weideman. Garlett Foll: Gawn. Tyson Viney Bench: Vandenberg Oliver Trengove Garland Emg: Grimes Kennedy Hunt Kent Best looking Demon side since 2005 by some distance. Will be knocking on the door this year if not too many injuries, although our reserves are now considerably better too. Jesse is going to have the time of his life!

Well I'm thinking 2017 grand final against the Pies, 30 seconds to go, Dees 5 points behind, Weideman marks 55 metres out on a 45 degree angle and pops it straight through the middle, siren sounds......Actually, as a 12 year old, my father and I were five seats away from Murray Weideman in the Second tier of the old Olympic stand in 1964, and I remember looking across to him just after the famous Crompton goal. He was puffing heavily on a cigarette, shaking like a leaf...we laughed up-roareously perhaps to our discredit, but it was certainly funny at the time!

I reckon Oliver and Weideman would be perfect for us. Strong bodied, aggressive midfielder, and a strong key position high marking forward. Complements Jesse and the mid field group perfectly. Exciting times!

For those who have ended their AFL careers, or are close to it, you would think they would have an interest in seeing the truth emerge particularly if that truth reveals that Hird, Essendon, and/or the AFL were directly or indirectly responsible for breaking the law. That would then make them vulnerable for law suits with substantial damages attached. Isn't it natural for people who lose their primary source of income ie football to seek further compensation if they can, particular if in the course of their employment there wasn't due care taken with their health? For many this would be a chance of a lifetime, one that at least some will choose to take in the event of a guilty verdict from CAS.

WADA and CAS (l put them together deliberately knowing that several on here will have a "pink fit" because in this particular case the way which the case is conduced is primarily the responsibility of the Court ie CAS, with the co-operation of the prosecution) learnt much from their action against Armstrong. They realised then how difficult it was to get to the truth inside a court with a media circus circus outside, particularly one heavily manipulated by professional media spin doctors biased to one side, hand in hand with vested interest media proprietors. Hence a closed court, witnesses giving testimony via video links so there is no ambush as they go in and out of the court, and those who work on the case both here and in Switzerland/Montreal sworn to secrecy. There are no leaks coming out of those organisations hence nothing to spin. And aren't we all better off for it.

It is going to ruin their year. ....err. decade

it is not a question of lying, I don't think they (the players, as opposed to Hird, Essendon and their PR machine) would do that. It is a question of not telling the whole truth as clearly happened at the AFL Tribunal particularly after "friends of Hird" managed to nobble/incentivise key witnesses (however you want to put it) into not appearing when their intention originally was to be there.This whole episode has been riddled with distortions, lies, cover ups, destruction of evidence, spurious legal actions - all designed to stop the truth from coming out and to protect Essendon and the personal interests of James Hird. And let's be honest about it, the players in the name of solidarity, have largely gone along with this charade. All I am saying that at least with some, they might come out at CAS and tell what actually went on. As for the others, no doubt they have been well briefed and coached by the ESENDON/Hird PR and legal teams (don't for one moment think this does not go on, because it does -often, and the people Hird/Essendon has employed around him are extremely good at it) to say as little as possible. That is what Richard Young is for though, to break down that facade, and use his forensic cross examination skills to get to the truth. That is one of the principle reasons l am so confident about the outcome in this, in spite of some on here accusing me both in posts and via email of being prone to hyperbole and distortion. Most of what I have predicted on here has come true, and it will here.