DRUGS, DENIALS & FOOTY
This
week, a seven month’s saga involving a prominent Melbourne-based Australian
Rules Football club, Essendon, and its governing body, the Australian Football
League (AFL), was finally resolved. Because of its lack of governance and
failure in its duty of care to its players, Essendon lost its premiership
points for the current season, incurred a fine of $2 million and lost draft
picks as a result of sanctions applied by the AFL. Also its key staff,
including its coach, James Hird, were either banned from the game for varying
periods or fined. These penalties were the harshest ever handed out to a club
in the history of the game.
This has been a traumatic time for everyone
involved or interested in Australia’s game, especially with the finals two
weeks away, and the credibility and reputation of footy has taken a hit.
In quaint, anachronistic legalese, the AFL
charged Essendon with ‘conduct unbecoming or likely to prejudice the interests
or reputation of the AFL or bring the game of football into disrepute’.
In short, Essendon allowed a loose,
secretive regime of injections to be frequently administered to players to
improve their performances, increase their strength and speed and aid in their
recovery from injuries. When the secret got out, it was discovered that no-one,
including the players, had any idea of what they had been injected with over
many months. They thought the injections were vitamins and legal, though
unspecified, ‘amino acids’. Apparently each player, bar one (he didn’t like
needles), had hundreds of injections from late 2011 through 2012. A biochemist ran the program, but didn’t keep
any records and even kept the club doctor in the dark, presumably with the
blessings of the coach and others in the Football Department of the club.
Then it really hit the fan with rumours
circulating that the biochemist had been using drugs banned by the World
Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) and that the players had, in effect, been used as
human guinea-pigs. By this time the biochemist had been sacked for unauthorised
spending on ‘amino acids’, which is a non-specific description on the invoices
issued by the pharmaceutical supplier. When things looked like hotting up, the
club reported it had some concerns about its program to the AFL and to the
Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA). Seven months of investigation
followed with ASADA releasing its preliminary report a few weeks ago and the
AFL Commission laying charges against Essendon and its key staff soon after.
Then the horse-trading began between the AFL
Commission and Essendon, with the former adamant that the club and its key
officers had to pay the penalty for, at least, creating a pharmaceutical
experimental environment for its players without any safeguards protecting
them.
Disappointingly both Essendon and its coach
initially rejected most charges and threatened legal action, as well as
throwing up smokescreens blaming certain AFL officers and/or the media for
conducting witch hunts. The club’s objective, as it turned out, was to remove the
innuendo in the charges that it had deliberately introduced banned substances
to gain a competitive advantage over other clubs.
As for James Hird, a football legend from
his playing days and Essendon’s favourite son, he had hired the best lawyers in
town months ago, as well as a media-expert to run interference. He repeatedly
denied any wrong-doing whatsoever. Only his most one-eyed fans – and there were
plenty of them – would have fallen for that. The evidence was damning that he
allowed and was aware of a needle-injected supplements regime that ran out of
control. Whether he was aware and approved of banned substances being administered
is open to conjecture – so the AFL Commission gave him the benefit of the doubt
in this regard.
In the end, after his club had buckled under
the sheer weight of the evidence against it, negotiated the revised wording of
the charges with the suggestion of drug-cheating now eliminated and reluctantly
accepted the penalties – did Hird back down from his legal threats and abjectly
apologise to the AFL Commission and accepted his medicine – a one year ban from
coaching.
The next day, would you believe, Hird’s
high-profile lawyer went on radio to declare Hird a hero for backing down for
the sake of the club and had done ‘absolutely nothing wrong’ and was innocent! And
later Hird stated ‘he was unfairly dealt with’, making a mockery of his
admission of fault and his apologies to the Commission on the previous night. Hello!
Spin was still alive and well.
So what’s my point?
James Hird has been offered a two-year
coaching contract with Essendon after he completes his one year ban.
Let’s hope for the thousands of Essendon
supporters around the country that he returns to the game a lot wiser and more willing
to admit his mistakes.
James, to err is human. To own up and be
genuinely sorry when you stuff up, is divine.
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