ASADA To Delay Decision To Appeal Not Guilty Verdict Handed To Essendon Players

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has today announced that it is still considering whether to lodge an appeal of the verdict of not guilty handed down yesterday to 34 past and present Essendon Football Club players.

The unanimous verdict was delivered yesterday by the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal – an independent board of arbitrators that had no official affiliation with either ASADA, the AFL, or the Essendon Football Club – clearing the way for all players who remain in the AFL system to take the field for their round one matches this weekend.
The decision brings an almost complete bookend to the long running saga, which began with the Bombers “self-reporting” mere days before the now-infamous “Blackest Day in Australian Sport” press conference from ASADA and the Australian Crime Commission. ASADA’s pending decision to appeal now remains the final hurdle to closing the book on the nearly 800 day mess for good.
Fronting media in Canberra this morning, ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt stated that it was “effectively the largest anti-doping investigation in Australian sporting history.”
McDevitt acknowledged the work of the AFL and the punishments handed down to the Essendon Football Club over governance issues and bringing the game into disrepute, which included booting the side from the 2013 Finals series, stripping them of draft picks, a monetary fine of $2million, and a 12 month suspension for senior coach James Hird.
A beleaguered looking McDevitt spoke with curious depth about the breadth and scope of the investigation, and the evidence that it uncovered, insisting that he and ASADA were not the enemy, as if to try and justify the operation to the public, “Doping is cheating. We’ve got to do everything we can to expose it. ASADA is not the enemy. A fight against doping is not a fight against sport.”
He also defended the protracted period of time in which the investigation was conducted, citing both the decisions of people involved with the case delaying things, the legal channels that were explored, and referencing his own history with the law enforcement industry, “I’ve worked in law enforcement for around 30 years, and I can tell you with some certainty that this was a complex investigation. These investigations take time to conduct.”
But McDevitt also asserted that a review of the processes involved in the investigation was definitely necessary – “It is clear that ASADA needs to re-assess its own processes. The same as the AFL needs to re-assess its processes. The same as Essendon needs to re-assess its processes.
ASADA now has a period of 21 days to consider their position, and decide whether or not to lodge an appeal. The overseeing global body WADA has an additional period of 21 days following ASADA’s eventual decision to weigh up their own options.
The lack of positive test results was seen as a huge deciding factor in the Tribunal’s decision to clear the players of any wrongdoing; ASADA’s body of evidence, though significant, was merely circumstantial and not enough to establish proof to any level of comfortable satisfaction. The anti-doping watchdog maintains their right to keep samples collected from Essendon players during 2012 frozen and in storage for a period of seven years, should testing technology become more advanced during that period.
For any appeal to be successful, new evidence would need to be acquired and presented. But with no physical evidence, with a unanimous verdict handed down by the tribunal, and with no legislative powers to force Stephen Dank to give evidence, its hard to see how any appeal would have any chance of success at this current stage.
Though it’s not totally over just yet, it feels like we’re reading the final page.
At long last, it’s time to simply get on with the task at hand – playing, watching, and enjoying footy, purely for the sake of it.
Photo: Quinn Rooney via Getty Images.

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