No Oppo Supporters ASAGA - The Final Chapter - Appeal Dismissed (Page 12) - The End

[faible]

Well i don't know anything of course so it's all just supposition on my part but I would hope that eventually the players will be exonerated. Why has it been brought up now by a board member? I think its because Hird is coming back to the club and it's a show of support for him. A sense of unity about circumstances which threatened to destroy the club but didn't because (a) everyone was innocent; and (b) there's strength and honour in speaking the truth; and (c) everyone was innocent.

And given it's Sheedy there's likely also to be a certain satisfaction in making people like Wilson and Barrett defend their positions, which, with the benefit of hindsight, make them look even more like hysterical witch burners than they did at the time.

What do you hope the players are exonerated for?

Putting aside for a moment what they were injected with; it's well documented that there was an off-site injection program run, that was hidden from the club doctor, that players universally opted not to declare on their anti-doping forms despite declaring other things.

 

[sameolds33]

Sure he's entitled.

Doesn't mean it wasn't ******* dumb though.

I don't think it's dumb, it's supportive. It's saying to the people who've suffered the injustice - who he knows personally - I see you and I believe you. There's a huge value in that for the people who were wronged.

 

[sameolds33]

What do you hope the players are exonerated for?

Putting aside for a moment what they were injected with; it's well documented that there was an off-site injection program run, that was hidden from the club doctor, that players universally opted not to declare on their anti-doping forms despite declaring other things.

Of the CAS charge that they were found to have been breached - by the reversal of the presumption of innocence and the sophistry of the strands of the cable argument.

 

[sameolds33]

Sure he can voice his opinion, but it doesn’t do much to change public opinion so I don’t know what result he is seeking/expecting. It has an old man yelling at clouds feel about it.

It’s an unfortunate situation for the innocent people caught up in this, but nothing will come from bringing it up again. It’s a dark part of the club’s history that doesn’t need to be revisited.

I don't think changing public opinion is the issue here. People will think what they're going to think.

 

[faible]

Of the CAS charge that they were found to have been breached - by the reversal of the presumption of innocence and the sophistry of the strands of the cable argument.

Putting aside what they might have been injected with for a moment;

Do you believe the players were complicit in engaging in an off-site injecting regime, intentionally bypassing the club doctor, and intentionally not noting down any injections on anti-doping forms?

If no, why?

If yes, why do you think they wouldn't have been willing to play around with substances they knew were at the boundaries of what is or is not permitted?

 

[sameolds33]

Putting aside what they might have been injected with for a moment;

Do you believe the players were complicit in engaging in an off-site injecting regime, intentionally bypassing the club doctor, and intentionally not noting down any injections on anti-doping forms?

If no, why?

If yes, why do you think they wouldn't have been willing to play around with substances they knew were at the boundaries of what is or is not permitted?

I'm not arguing the substantive case (did they/didn't they) I'm arguing the procedural injustice of the CAS appeal (reversal of the onus of proof), the vindictive trial by media, the ASADA/WADA/AFL political agendas. The process that the club was put through to find the result that was expedient. I think that's what Sheedy's point is too.

 

[faible]

I'm not arguing the substantive case (did they/didn't they) I'm arguing the procedural injustice of the CAS appeal (reversal of the onus of proof), the vindictive trial by media, the ASADA/WADA/AFL political agendas. The process that the club was put through to find the result that was expedient. I think that's what Sheedy's point is too.

I have no doubt the AFL tried to stage manage the process, then washed their hands of the whole thing and hung Hird specifically out to dry whilst Robinson, Charters, Dank, Corcoran and Robson slunk off in to the shadows.

I also think the players should ultimately have been suspended, much as it sucks for them.

 

[sameolds33]

I have no doubt the AFL tried to stage manage the process, then washed their hands of the whole thing and hung Hird specifically out to dry whilst Robinson, Charters, Dank, Corcoran and Robson slunk off in to the shadows.

I also think the players should ultimately have been suspended, much as it sucks for them.

And you have a right to think and say that. Sheedy does too. He's allowed to support the people who were damaged by the process.

 

[Beerfish]

I don't think it's dumb, it's supportive

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[sameolds33]

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

true. But in this case I don't think the timing is accidental.

 

[jmoo wan]

oh yeah - I've missed all this!!

 

[I Remember Bluey]

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/architect-of-essendons-2012-supplements-program-insists-he-was-the-victim-of-a-set-up/news-story/f23a28ceba373b0340a6e56ed340b660

Architect of Essendon’s 2012 supplements program insists he was the victim of a “set up”​

On the 10-year anniversary of the start of the Essendon supplements saga, the architect of the disastrous program has made allegations he was the victim of a set up.


Sports scientist Stephen Dank – the architect of Essendon’s disastrous 2012 supplements program – insists he was the victim of a “set up”.
Footy’s greatest scandal erupted 10 years ago today, when Bombers’ chiefs walked into AFL House and “self-reported” over the potential use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Dank was handed a lifetime ban in the fallout from the saga but has never admitted to administering the banned peptide, Thymosin Beta-4, to 34 Essendon players.
In a sworn affidavit lodged with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal as part of a last-ditch legal bid to clear the players’ names, Dank declares there was “literally … no evidence of wrongdoing against me at Essendon”.

A decade on from the devastating drugs saga, Dank told the Herald Sun this week: “I have never given up hope that the players and I will be cleared. No-one should have been subjected to the lies and corruption that the 35 of us were exposed to”.
Ex-AFL boss Andrew Demetriou, in charge of the league at the start of the saga, declined to be interviewed about his recollections of footy’s most tumultuous period.

The face of the scandal, James Hird, declared: “I’ve moved on in my life.”
Former ASADA chief executive Ben McDevitt said: “I played it right down the line ... my job was to apply the rules.”

Stephen Dank insists he was the victim of a “set up”. Picture: Mark Stewart

League chief executive Gillon McLachlan, the AFL’s lead negotiator, told the Herald Sun he would not comment.
In his affidavit, Dank said the conspiracy against him began in May 2012 when customs officials confiscated his mobile phone after a trip to Qatar “on the spurious grounds that they were looking for pornography”.

“Customs downloaded everything from my phone. There was no pornography (but) to the best of my memory, there were nearly 7000 text messages,” Dank said.
Nine days later, Dank was hauled in for secret questioning by federal government criminal investigators and grilled “for about seven hours”.
“It was a compulsory hearing, where I was not only compelled to attend, but also not permitted by law, to discuss,” he said.
“Suffice to say, when coupled with customs confiscating my phone … I believed I was being set up.”

Dank says just one of the 7000 SMS messages on his phone referred to “Thymosin Beta-4” (unrelated to Essendon) but alleges the texts were later manipulated by investigators from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

How the Herald Sun covered the story.

No positive drug tests were ever registered by Essendon players, who were initially cleared of doping by an AFL tribunal, before the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the decision in January 2016 on appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal found me not guilty of administering or attempting to administer Thymosin Beta-4 to various Essendon players, and ruled that I had not assisted, nor encouraged, nor aided, nor abetted nor covered up administration of the peptide,” Dank said.

“In my view, AFL deputy CEO Gill McLachlan, ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt and ASADA head investigator Aaron Walker knew, or should have known, that they literally had no evidence of wrongdoing against me at Essendon …”
Dank said the AFL’s 34-page charge sheet against Essendon coach James Hird, assistant coach Mark Thompson, footy manager Danny Corcoran and club doctor Bruce Reid “smashed the players’ confidentiality rights” and “contained scores of misrepresentations and “arguably lies”.
Start





“I never took possession of Thymosin Beta-4 during the period under review at Essendon,” he said in the signed affidavit.
Essendon players signed consent forms in 2012 to be administered with ‘Thymosin’, which Dank and lawyers for the Bombers later said was the immunity booster Thymomodulin - not Thymosin Beta-4.

And despite former ASADA boss Ben McDevitt telling ABC radio in 2016 “there were over 100 text messages that unveiled a plan to source Thymosin Beta-4 for the purpose of doping the Essendon team”, Dank declared that “there wasn’t a single text to that effect”.
In another “unforgivable act”, Dank claimed an ASADA investigator told the Essendon players during their formal interviews that an associate had injected them, “at my request, with an unknown substance sourced over the counter in Mexico”.

“(The investigator) turned the players against me when he told the players that the substance could cause birth defects in their children.

“(He) lied in claiming the substance was bought in Mexico. The substance called Amino Lite was bought in El Paso, which is in the United States of America.
“It was incomprehensible and unconscionable for (the investigator) to have caused such fear amongst the players and their wives.”
During another interview with key witness Nima Alavi from the Como Compounding Pharmacy, Dank claimed that ASADA “implied that I broke into Mr Alavi’s premises during the night and forged documents.

“As a result of those lies, WADA’s lawyer and the presiding CAS ‘judge’ metaphorically speaking referred to me as a bank robber during the hearing …
“The extent of the phony ASADA/AFL injection campaign is best illustrated by the public statements by then AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou … McLachlan, former WADA president John Fahey and then … Mr McDevitt.
“Mr Demetriou estimated that the players received 10,000-plus injections; Mr McLachlan suggested 4000-plus injections; Mr Fahey said 3000-plus and Mr McDevitt suggested hundreds if not thousands.”

Dank’s affidavit was filed as part of a Freedom of Information dispute in the AAT led by former Australian Test cricketer and economist Bruce Francis.
Francis is seeking the release of key documents presented to the independent Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel in 2014 as part of ASADA’s pursuit of the Essendon 34.

How the Herald Sun covered the story.

“It is in the players’, the public’s and my interests, to release the documents that will reveal the truth about the case ASADA made to the ADRVP that it was possible 34 players were administered Thymosin Beta-4,” Dank said.

Dank worked at the AFL-controlled Gold Coast Suns before his time at Essendon, supplied substances to Geelong in its 2009 premiership season (the calf’s blood extract Actovegin, which is legal, from a company in Ukraine) and was employed by Melbourne when the drugs scandal broke on February 5, 2013.
His affidavit refers to a 2019 Herald Sun report which revealed ASADA’s “Check Your Substances” website — which athletes and coaches are encouraged to inspect prior to using supplements — did not flag Thymosin Beta-4 as banned until the afternoon of February 4, 2013.

The status update came on the same day the AFL called Essendon chairman David Evans about a secret investigation into the club’s supplements program, prompting the Bombers to “self-report” to the league.

“The evidence of a stitch-up is compelling,” Melbourne scientist Bob O’Dea said at the time.
In a 2019 poll of Herald Sun readers, 81 per cent agreed there should have been a royal commission into the handling of the Essendon doping scandal.

 

[I Remember Bluey]

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/destruction-of-the-bombers-how-the-drugs-saga-ripped-the-soul-out-of-the-essendon-football-club/news-story/a04e679b40c518a37a8519c1985235b5

Destruction of the Bombers: How the drugs saga ripped the soul out of the Essendon Football Club​

It is 10 harrowing years since the destruction of the Bombers began. And even now Essendon remains a ghost of warriors past. Mark Robinson looks at the relationships that may never recover.

Essendon remains a ghost of warriors past.
It is 10 harrowing and contentious years since the destruction of the Bombers began, on Tuesday, February 5, 2013, when the darkest day in Australian Rules history cast allegations of drug cheating.

They proved to be correct despite no positive drugs tests, but the “strands of evidence’’ saw the world’s highest sports governing body, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, eventually bring down the gavel and declare guilty.
The never-ending saga – it’s still in dispute – brought unforgivable grief for 34 suspended players, it ripped the soul out of the football club and a once proud supporter base and ended countless friendships.

Like that of James Hird and Tim Watson, Hird and former chairman David Evans, and how premiership captain Mark Thompson lost everyone for a time there.
There are many more within the football club.
Trust was lost. Forgiveness was rare.

The Essendon saga left James Hird a shattered man. Picture: Hamish Blair

Forged on premierships played together, Hird and Watson don’t speak, Evans hasn’t spoken publicly since he resigned as president, and Thompson is a virtual recluse, quietly making bespoke furniture in Airport West.
“I’ve tried to maintain relationships with all of them, premiership captain, premiership champions, and it’s all broken,’’ former senior staffer Danny Corcoran lamented to the Herald Sun.
February 5, 2013, was an extraordinary day.

The press conference at AFL headquarters was tornado-like for its impact.
Evans announced the club had self-reported and, in hindsight, from that moment, the Bombers lost their ability to defend themselves.
The AFL, by virtue of the joint investigation with ASADA, became investigator and prosecutor, and by the time the interim report was delivered in August, 2013, which helped the league to boot the Bombers from the finals, Essendon was effectively doomed.
Overall, tens of millions of dollars in legal fees would be spent by the AFL, Essendon, ASADA and Hird included, in what seemed never-ending courtroom showdowns.

Hird was tenacious, adamant PEDS were not taken and even more adamant the AFL’s involvement was corrupt. But the Federal Court of Appeal would eventually end his crusade.
Still, questions remain unanswered about the regime of peptide injections.
Were they given PEDS?
CAS said yes. The AFL said yes. The AFL-fed media said yes. People at Essendon still say no.








By its tedious end, ASADA couldn’t prove they took PEDs and Essendon couldn’t prove they didn’t. But there was no stalemate. CAS played the joker and the Bombers had run out of trumps.
Stephen Dank, who previously was involved at Geelong and Gold Coast, became as notorious as Ned Kelly. He was portrayed as a mad sports scientist who convinced others that winning could be found in a needle as much as it could be found on the training track.

Only Dank really knows what he gave the players, and he says on today’s Herald Sun front page that he was set up.
Very few people will believe him, and even if what he says is true, some people still won’t want to believe him.
That’s despite the AFL’s anti-doping tribunal clearing him of doping the players after a gruelling 18-day trial. Dank maintains there is literally no evidence that the drug in question, Thymosin beta-4, had been administered to Bombers players.

There’s little point today having a forensic look at every rabbit hole which swallowed the Essendon supplement saga, suffice to say Essendon was punished by the AFL for poor governance, and Hird, Thompson and Corcoran were held up to be the masterminds.
It’s unfathomable that Hird was forced to take a 12-month suspension despite barely rating a mention in the hearings against the players, and Dean Robinson, the high performance manager who was in charge of Dank, eventually won close to a $1million payout for wrongful dismissal.

Jobe and Tim Watson did not support James Hird’s attempts to return as senior coach. Picture: Michael Klein

It’s also unfathomable that the three highest office holders at the club at the time, president Evans, chief executive Ian Robson and football boss Paul Hamilton have never spoken about their role during the saga.
“I know my conscience is clear,” Hamilton wrote in a text to the Herald Sun in May 2013.
Robson resigned, also in May of that year, claiming he wasn’t aware of the supplements program.

As the saga ran, it seemed that the AFL needed a scapegoat. At the end, they were Hird, Thompson and Corcoran, determined at a ‘’hearing” at AFL headquarters in 2013.
Hird received 12 months, Thompson a $30,000 fine and Corcoran a six-month suspension.
It wasn’t a hearing at all. It was the culmination of backroom deals, threats and inducements.
Indeed, the whole saga was poisoned.

Because the AFL was desperate to have the players cleared to avoid Armageddon in terms of TV rights contracts, the AFL’s strategy was to instead blame a handful of officials.
But ASADA boss Ben McDevitt had other ideas.
McDevitt, who became chief executive of the anti-doping body after the departure of Aurora Andruska, nailed the players, ending the AFL’s hopes of containing the scandal to mere governance breaches.

The saga nearly killed Hird. He was rushed to hospital with a stomach full of pills and red wine as depression and PTSD drove him to the unthinkable.
Thompson, who himself was besieged by drug dependency, always believed Evans was a puppet for Demetriou.
Days after Hird was hospitalised in 2017, Thompson wrote an email to Evans.
“I think it’s time you stepped up to be the man we thought you were,” Thompson said to Evans.

Mark Thompson and James Hird dealt with personal issues after the drugs saga. Picture: Getty Images

“It’s time to start fighting for the truth for all our sakes, and most importantly for the players’ sake. They deserve to know everything we know about this fiasco. It’s time we all stood up and right the wrong.
“James will die if you continue to let the world bully him. Your former best friend will die fighting for the cause ... You need to save my life and that of James Hird, Danny Corcoran, Dr Bruce Reid and 34 current and past players.

“You would save the game in many ways. It’s been a cover-up from the start. And like Watergate, the cover-up is worse than the crime.”
The much-loved Doc Reid passed away in October 2020. He had cancer. Friends wonder how much did the saga contribute to his death.
“Who knows what stress it had on Dr Reid,’’ Corcoran said.
Doc was a fighter. When he threatened to sue the league after being charged for his involvement in the supplements program, the league dropped all charges.

For a short time, even Hird and Reid, whom Hird considered a father-figure for 25 years, had a falling out. It was rectified and when Reid died of cancer, Hird was inconsolable in a New York hotel room.
The friendship between Watson and Hird right now at least is beyond repair. That’s not to say it can’t be saved, and Corcoran is endeavouring to fix what is ‘’broken’.

But it’s the coldest of cold wars between the pair.
When Hird put up his hand to coach Essendon in 2023, Watson was not a supporter.
Watson’s son Jobe, one of Essendon’s most loved players, was forced to return his Brownlow Medal, won in 2012, the year of peptide.

James Hird and Dr Bruce Reid. Picture: Michael Klein

It was gut-wrenching for the Watson family, and although Tim doesn’t believe the players took PEDS, that his son found himself terribly let down by the club, which was coached by Hird, it’s easy to understand the dad’s agony.
He made it clear he was opposed to Hird returning to the club.

“I think for a lot of people it would drag back all those things that happened and occurred during that period of time that he was there as coach,” Watson said on SEN.
“I have to say that I’d be more than surprised if he ended up being the coach.’’
Watson is a powerful figure at Essendon and his comments, both publicly and more than likely privately, would’ve been noted by new president David Barham.

Evans remains a curious figure. He has only briefly spoken in the past decade about what occurred at Essendon, especially in the initial stages.
He and Hird fell-out in 2013 when the Herald Sun detailed a phone call between Evans and then AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou, which culminated in Essendon self-reporting to ASADA and the AFL the next day.

Hird, Reid, Robson and Corcoran were at Evans’ house when the phone call was made.
Demetriou has denied he tipped off Evans that Essendon was the club being investigated for doping
The Herald Sun’s front page called it the “Night of Crisis”.

The next night, Evans collapsed in the rooms after a game at Marvel. The day after he resigned as chairman.
Hird and Evans were best mates. They haven’t spoken in a decade.

The drugs saga was an incredibly hostile period for everyone involved, and the scars remain, not least for the 34 players who were suspended for a year.
They did nothing wrong.
And that is the greatest shame of all.

 

[I Remember Bluey]

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/10-years-since-the-essendon-drugs-saga-how-the-biggest-scandal-in-australian-sports-history-erupted/news-story/7d4cf6f11208b48c7c348df3b579b017

10 years since the Essendon drugs saga: How the biggest scandal in Australian sports history erupted​

It started with a snap press conference at AFL House. It ended with lives ruined and friendships destroyed. This is how the Essendon drugs saga unfolded.

The biggest scandal in Australian sports history erupted at a snap press conference at AFL House at 2pm on Tuesday, February 5, 2013.
This is how all the key moments unfolded.

THE BOMBERS COME FORWARD
Essendon chairman David Evans, the softly spoken son of late AFL Commission chairman Ron Evans, fronted the cameras in the Mike Sheahan Media Centre flanked by senior coach James Hird and Bombers chief executive Ian Robson.
The club had come forward, Evans explained, to ask the AFL and Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority to investigate concerns about supplements used by its players during the 2012 season.
“The info we gathered over the last 24 or 48 hours is slightly concerning, and we want to dig a bit deeper, but we want the AFL to help us,” he said.

James Hird and Mark Thompson coached the Bombers throughout the drugs saga. Picture: Michael Klein

WHAT DID THE PLAYERS TAKE?
The scandal that would consume the game over the following weeks, months and years was the most destructive the game has known. Friendships were ripped apart, the lives of players and officials up-ended, coaches sacked and AFL and anti-doping chiefs accused of systemic leaks, manipulation of evidence and brazen breaches of the law.

In the early months, the focus was on Essendon’s shambolic injections program overseen by sports scientist Stephen Dank and the Bombers’ high-performance boss Dean “The Weapon” Robinson.
It emerged that players had been injected with vitamins and a range of exotically-named substances including the anti-obesity drug AOD-9604 and Thymosin.

Hird was accused of personally injecting “the WADA-black listed drug” hexarelin and came under pressure to stand down.
According to ASADA’s interim report club officials had also self-injected themselves with the artificial tanning drug Melanotan II.






THE “TIP OFF”
The saga turned on its head when it was revealed ASADA investigators had been told about a “tip off” phone call made by AFL boss Andrew Demetriou to Evans in the days before the club “self-reported”.
The manoeuvre would be the trigger for the AFL to conduct a joint investigation with ASADA and give the league control of and access to all confidential information.

Central to the league’s high-stakes strategy was a determination to spare Essendon players from drug bans and protect its billion-dollar commercial contracts – sheeting blame for the program to Hird and other club officials.

Essendon’s decision to “self-report” (and effectively admit to wrongdoing before an ASADA investigation had even begun) came just two days before the dramatic “blackest day in sport” press conference in Canberra where Gillard government ministers – flanked by the heads of all major sporting codes – warned of widespread drug use in Australian sport, match-fixing, and organised crime links.

But the facts would not back up the bravado in a day now widely regarded as a political stunt.
NRL club Cronulla became embroiled in the saga, which dominated the front and back pages of national newspapers.

Andrew Demetriou speaking at an AFL press conference about the drugs saga in 2013. Picture: AAP Images

THE WAR AND SURRENDER
Evans resigned suddenly after the “tip off” story broke in July 2013 and all out war between Hird, Essendon and the AFL ensued with new Bombers boss, billionaire businessman Paul Little, calling on AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick to “step in and takeover this process, as I along with a significant percentage of the football public have lost total confidence in the AFL executive to handle this matter”.

But on August 27, 2013, Essendon yielded and was slapped with the heaviest penalties in football history: a $2 million fine, banishment from the finals and the loss of multiple draft picks for governance failings. Hird was suspended for 12 months, football manager Danny Corcoran for six months and assistant coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson fined $30,000.
Club doctor Bruce Reid refused to deal and the charges against him were dropped like a hot potato when he took his case to the Victorian Supreme Court.

How the Herald Sun covered the story.

It was later revealed that Hird had been showered with a series of inducements in secret negotiations between Essendon and the AFL, including “an outstanding career development opportunity”, in exchange for dropping his own court action against the league. The University of Oxford was suggested, but the coach would later settle on the prestigious INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France for his sins.

Demetriou sealed his own fate when he boldly declared on 3AW radio that Hird was not being paid while serving his suspension.
“That is one thing I will go to my grave on: I know 100 per cent that the AFL is not paying (Hird) and I know that Essendon is not paying.”
He was flat out wrong and resigned in March 2014, handing the reins to his long-time deputy and deal maker, Gillon McLachlan.

Jobe Watson and teammates held a press conference after they had been suspended. Picture: Getty Images

THE PLAYERS ARE CHARGED
Despite assurances from AFL chiefs to Bombers bosses that the players would not face doping sanctions, in June 2014, ASADA issued 34 Dons with show cause notices.
Hird and Essendon launched an unsuccessful counter attack in the Federal Court questioning the legality of the joint ASADA-AFL probe, before the players were found not guilty by the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal after an 18-day hearing in March 2015.
Tribunal chairman David Jones declared that a three-man panel was not “comfortably satisfied” the 34 players had been administered the banned peptide Thymosin Beta-4.
But the verdict was short lived.

In January 2016, the ‘Essendon 34’ were slapped with 12-month bans by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on appeal, forcing the AFL Commission to strip skipper Jobe Watson of his 2012 Brownlow Medal.
The Dons fielded a team stacked with top-up players and duly secured the club’s first wooden spoon since 1933.
Dank received a lifetime ban, but, inexplicably, Robinson was never charged by the league or ASADA – and instead walked away with a $1 million payout after issuing Supreme Court subpoenas against Demetriou, McLachlan, Evans and Robson.
Robinson would later be cleared to work again in the NRL.

How the Herald Sun covered the story.

THE HUMAN TOLL
The scandal took its darkest turn a year later when Hird attempted to take his own life.
“From what I have observed over the past number of years, it seems that you can glass your partner, you can sleep with your best friend’s wife and the path to forgiveness will always be open in AFL land – but if your name is James Hird that path will be blocked,” Hird’s shattered lawyer, Steven Amendola, declared at the time.

Thompson’s life, too, spiralled into the abyss. His marriage collapsed and after police raids on his Port Melbourne apartment in 2018, he was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order.
As former AFL commissioner Peter Scanlon said of the devastating Essendon drugs scandal in the book The Boys’ Club: “I think they (the AFL) got caught out. They thought they could solve it in a much simpler way and underestimated the vehemence of ASADA”.


https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/...p/news-story/f23a28ceba373b0340a6e56ed340b660

 

[boncer34]

 

[I Remember Bluey]

Sorry, just thought I would share what was in the paper.

I won't anymore

 

[Beerfish]

Sorry, just thought I would share what was in the paper.

I won't anymore

I'd say that was aimed at them rather than you.

 

[eth-dog]

Sorry, just thought I would share what was in the paper.

I won't anymore

Maybe put it in quote markers.

 

[I Remember Bluey]

Maybe put it in quote markers.

Sorry I don't understand

 

[eth-dog]

Sorry I don't understand

It's a big wall of text, if you wrap it in quotes it's easier to scroll through

 

[jmoo wan]

ahhh… 10 years already, this has certainly bought back some wonderful memories!

 

[Beerfish]

Any other opposition posters wanting to comment might want to check the tag on this thread before they get carded.

 

[DERO]

Any other opposition posters wanting to comment might want to check the tag on this thread before they get carded.

Just **** him off and shut it down mate. Our supporters will be just as bad. There is no point reopening old wounds.

 

[yodellinhank]

Just * him off and shut it down mate. Our supporters will be just as bad. There is no point reopening old wounds.

I think it's interesting, that's the first time we've ever really heard from Dank.

 

[Phone]

seems a little bad faith to drone on about Dank's affidavit without even referencing the whole issue of Dank saying that he gave the players Thymosin Beta-4 and then back-tracking when told that he should not have done that. but then with Robinson at the helm it's not like these articles had much chance of being in good faith

Dank's stunning admission

Australia’s most infamous sports scientist paused for a moment before erupting. ''That’s just mind-blowing.''

www.theage.com.au