Play Nice The CAS Appeal thread - update: appeal fails (11/10/16)

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yebiga said:
Whatever the players guilt this is now patently an excessive punishment and the CAS, WADA, ASADA show is compromised.
I would like to see the Essendon players take CAS/WADA to the Australian High Court for contributory Civil Damages.
I have no issue with the players receiving some kind of punishment. Much to the elongated nature of this case was by many attributed to Hird's legal challenges.

This is now well out of the picture and what we see is that the CAS/WADA system is dysfunctional. The case here is clearly of public interest but there is no public communication, nor any indicative date stated emphatically by CAS. Moreover, as the Essendon bans are ever nearing completion any positive result for the Essendon players is entirely useless already.

The reputation that WADA/ASADA hoped to preserve is undermined by the "harsh" penalty and the procedural dysfunction of CAS in responding to the current appeal. In this obscure case, the players may well share a guilt and a deserved punishment for their naivety. However, this could never be a conclusive beyond doubt finding and thus, the CAS decision was clearly motivated by revenge to punish the audacity of the Challenges to ASADA. The punishment is out of step with the circumstances.

This is a scandal but you would not know it. The most popular sport in the country with the most number of journalists covering anything out of the ordinary simply don't have the wherewithal. Now if a player were to urinate on Lygon Street there would be pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth, swift justice, penalties and apologies. But a bunch of faceless irresponsible, unaccountable, dysfunctional and inconsistent middle aged fatties somewhere in Switzerland - funded by us all - are not to be questioned, criticized or pressured.

I think we all know the worst that may have occurred at Essendon. The consequences have been devastating for everyone at that club. It was right that there had to be punishments. And whilst Essendon were prevaricating and challenging it was perhaps appropriate for many to become angry and enraged by Essendon and its attempt to wiggle out of its accountability.

Now, however, its done; its time for AFL supporters and the industry to turn the spotlight on the entire anti doping framework and those who are tasked to administer it. The confusion of the legality of various substances, the extra judicial promises and the entire manner of investigation, the basis of the decision and the review processes all proved contentious and ultimately dubious.

Where are you Caroline, Barrett, Smith??? Your supposedly there for the good of game when clubs players err, where are you when this egregious flawed system errs? If only we can get one those ASADA or CAS representatives urinating on Lygon Street.
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The players could have gone to the Australian court to seek a stay on the ban but decided not to as not to reset the backdated bans. This was the players choice. It's also not really any different from what often happens in Australian courts when people appeal driving bans. Many people appeal the conviction on the off chance they can expunge their record, but don't ask for the ban to be suspended to get it over and done with.

Not really sure how it's unfair as they received a 2 year ban mid Jan and it effectively ends for most players in sept when they can resume training, thus only serving 8 out of 24 months.

You can argue 2 years was excessive, but this is your opinion others including ex Olympians (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...d/news-story/b540642a0ec38e83b5a4a81321167b31) have argued they got what they deserved.
 
Muggs said:
The players could have gone to the Australian court to seek a stay on the ban but decided not to as not to reset the backdated bans. This was the players choice. It's also not really any different from what often happens in Australian courts when people appeal driving bans. Many people appeal the conviction on the off chance they can expunge their record, but don't ask for the ban to be suspended to get it over and done with.

Not really sure how it's unfair as they received a 2 year ban mid Jan and it effectively ends for most players in sept when they can resume training, thus only serving 8 out of 24 months.

You can argue 2 years was excessive, but this is your opinion others including ex Olympians (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...d/news-story/b540642a0ec38e83b5a4a81321167b31) have argued they got what they deserved.
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And the cronulla players got a funded trip to Bali for a few weeks.
 
yebiga said:
And the cronulla players got a funded trip to Bali for a few weeks.
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Yup and bet they happy they took the deal when offered, got it over and done with and moved on with their life rather than fight it themselves, or the club, all they way through....

Particularly once Dank admitted under oath this year in his defamation case against news limited he actually oversaw the administration of the substances they were banned for (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...m/news-story/64956ddedbfb7cacc74eab6e418fc09e).

Wonder what Dank will say under oath if his various defamation cases relating to his time at the EFC ever go ahead...

With the benefit of hindsight wonder how many EFC players now regret not taking a deal back in 2014?
 
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Muggs said:
Yup and bet they happy they took the deal when offered, got it over and done with and moved on with their life rather than fight it themselves, or the club, all they way through....

Particularly once Dank admitted under oath this year in his defamation case against news limited he actually oversaw the administration of the substances they were banned for (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...m/news-story/64956ddedbfb7cacc74eab6e418fc09e).

Wonder what Dank will say under oath if his various defamation cases relating to his time at the EFC ever go ahead...

With the benefit of hindsight wonder how many EFC players now regret not taking a deal back in 2014?
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All of them - naturally
That isn't the point
Is it about justice or the pleasure of exercising power and rewarding fawning.
The actual facts have become less and less important it seems.
 
yebiga said:
All of them - naturally
That isn't the point
Is it about justice or the pleasure of exercising power and rewarding fawning.
The actual facts have become less and less important it seems.
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The EFC players exercised their rights to defend themselves knowing the risks, a drawn out process and a potential two year ban.

Exactly the same risks the NRL players faced, who then considered these risks and made a different decision.

Agree the actual facts have become less important it seems, hearing a lot of whining about how unfair everything is, the facts are the players knew the risks.
 
Muggs said:
The EFC players exercised their rights to defend themselves knowing the risks, a drawn out process and a potential two year ban.

Exactly the same risks the NRL players faced, who then considered these risks and made a different decision.

Agree the actual facts have become less important it seems, hearing a lot of whining about how unfair everything is, the facts are the players knew the risks.
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That is done
The facts are also that we have drug code admin and procedure which is dysfunctional.
 
yebiga said:
That is done
The facts are also that we have drug code admin and procedure which is dysfunctional.
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Why? because both parties exercised their right of of appeal meaning it's a long process?

Sounds like what happens in our civil courts in contract disputes all the time, and this is a contract dispute.
 
Muggs said:
Why? because both parties exercised their right of of appeal meaning it's a long process?

Sounds like what happens in our civil courts in contract disputes all the time, and this is a contract dispute.
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Mmm
Well for the same transgression you can get a holiday in Bali or two years.

Just depends on your legal advice.

For me your dismissal hides a level of hypocrisy I can't.
 
yebiga said:
Mmm
Well for the same transgression you can get a holiday in Bali or two years.

Just depends on your legal advice.

For me your dismissal hides a level of hypocrisy I can't.
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That's what you get for taking a deal as opposed to defending the charges.

Really nothing different to the plea deals that get arranged every day in our criminal justice system. If there was no advantage to taking a deal why would anyone ever take one? without the use of deals our courts would collapse under the administrative load.

The players had a chance to take the same deal, that is where the fairness comes in. The players made the decision not to take the deal so can't expect the same outcome as would have occurred with a deal.
 
Muggs said:
That's what you get for taking a deal as opposed to defending the charges.

Really nothing different to the plea deals that get arranged every day in our criminal justice system. If there was no advantage to taking a deal why would anyone ever take one? without the use of deals our courts would collapse under the administrative load.

The players had a chance to take the same deal, that is where the fairness comes in. The players made the decision not to take the deal so can't expect the same outcome as would have occurred with a deal.
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There is a little bit of schadenfreud going on here. Forget essendon, are we pleased with the asada WADA CAS Swiss court process?

It seems to me riddled with arbitrary and Byzantine processes i.e. FIFA IOC
 
yebiga said:
There is a little bit of schadenfreud going on here. Forget essendon, are we pleased with the asada WADA CAS Swiss court process?

It seems to me riddled with arbitrary and Byzantine processes i.e. FIFA IOC
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Was the system perfect no - but there are things I like and dislike, which is pretty much how I feel about the Australian legal system.

I like the onus is on the athlete/player to be the last line of defence in doping matters - i.e needs to be strict liability, the onus is on the players to individually check (we also saw this with the Sharapova case - in terms of penalty both the EFC34 and Sharapova got the same penalty for the same reasons lot of similarities between the two cases around fault nice to see consistency).

I like the use of a mid level burden of proof - to me the greater injustice is allowing athletes who dope take to the field, so think beyond resonable doubt is to high a proof and would only ever catch stupid dopers or years later when science catch up. This does need to be balanced against banning athletes wily nilly,

Not a big fan of sports holding their own tribunals - think we need an Australian version of CAS - or at least use the general division of CAS in the first instance.

Think there are to many steps in the ASADA process, thankfully some of these have been eliminated since - but still bureaucratically heavy before getting to the tribunal this can be tidied up.

I'm pragmatic about deals to reduce penalties, and think deals should be carrot and stick - i.e a deal should always be a lower penalty than what a tribunal/CAS would award -i.e discount for pleading guilty.

Also think (same as with general policing of crimes a lot of the time) that authorities are reactionary and not resourced properly to put in preventative checks/controls - but this requires a level of funding well beyond what ASADA/WADA have today. Think much of the delays in the EFC34 case was ASADA needing to recruit to actually have people handle the EFC34 and NRL cases - ASADA has since shrunk which in my view is an issue.

More widely speaking looking at anti-doping efforts around the world would like to a properly resourced WADA which is responsible for anti doping and not national agencies or sporting bodies themselves.

On CAS would like to see CAS formally adopt the chair appointed by both parties - think this happens informally but under current process the chair of appeals are appointed by CAS.

I like the recent change in the WADA code where intent to take a banned substance is now 4 years, lack of intent but have fault is two years, and no fault or negligence is less than two years. I think this has made things much clearer in terms of what fault/negligence is compared to intent. To me the EFC34 had fault due to not checking themselves but not intent to take a banned substance (again like Sharapova no intent to take a banned substance, but intent to take a substance and one they did not check the legality of themselves).

This is just top of my head and my own views.
 

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Malifice said:
Right.

Ive been avoiding this place for a while. The few years prior were... unpleasant.

Someone wanna give me the short version of where this is at?
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All paper worked lodged, waiting for the result in what's expected to be a paperwork only appeal.

Earliest the result was expected according to WADA was August... We now in August so whenever...

Edit Campbell is quoted in the HS as saying best case late August, worse case October.
 
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Muggs said:
All paper worked lodged, waiting for the result in what's expected to be a paperwork only appeal.

Earliest the result was expected according to WADA was August... We now in August so whenever...
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Many thanks. I'm sure you just saved me an hour of my life reading this thread that I would never get back.

Any leaks on how it went? Or have the leaks stopped now that Hird and the AFL isnt involved anymore?
 
compact72 said:
People still have the belief the players would be let off straight away if they win :\
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If they win on the primary grounds that be the case.... But frankly think I've got more chance of playing in the finals than Crameri....Swiss court knocked back appeals on this ground before... Numerous times.

Even than WADA may decide to head back to CAS so won't be totally over.

Their other two grounds just get sent back to CAS anyway for more waiting.

Edit.. Assuming a win...
 
Malifice said:
Many thanks. I'm sure you just saved me an hour of my life reading this thread that I would never get back.

Any leaks on how it went? Or have the leaks stopped now that Hird and the AFL isnt involved anymore?
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Once the issue went overseas the leaks stopped
 

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Play Nice The CAS Appeal thread - update: appeal fails (11/10/16)

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