The 2012 Brownlow Medal was the 85th year the award was presented to the player adjudged the

fairest and best In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

player during the Australian Football League (AFL) home and away season. The award was won jointly by Sam Mitchell of the

Hawthorn Football Club The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Mulgrave, Victoria, that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawt ...

and

Trent Cotchin Trent William Cotchin (born 7 April 1990) is an Australian rules footballer who plays for the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is a Brownlow Medallist, an All-Australian, a three-time Richmond best and fairest ...

of the Richmond Football Club, each of whom polled 26 votes during the 2012 AFL season.

Jobe Watson Jobe Watson (born 8 February 1985) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Watson, the son of three-time Essendon premiership champion Tim Watson, w ...

of the Essendon Football Club originally received the medal by polling thirty votes; however, Watson and thirty-three of his Essendon team-mates were later found guilty and suspended for using a banned substance during the 2012 season under the club's sports science program, a scandal known as the Essendon supplements saga. On 15 November 2016, four years after initially receiving the medal, the

AFL Commission The AFL Commission is the official governing body of the Australian Football League Limited (AFL), its subsidiaries and controlled entities. Richard Goyder has been chairman since 4 April 2017, replacing Mike Fitzpatrick. It was formed in 198 ...

ruled Watson retrospectively ineligible for the award due to the suspension he received, and awarded the medal jointly to Cotchin and Mitchell, the players with the next most votes.

Leading vote-getters

* Watson was deemed ineligible to win the Brownlow due to his involvement in the Essendon supplements saga.
** Pavlich was ineligible for the medal after being suspended during the home-and-away season.

Voting procedure

The three field

umpires An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...

(those umpires who control the flow of the game, as opposed to goal or boundary umpires) confer after each match and award three votes, two votes, and one vote to the players they regard as the best, second-best and third-best in the match, respectively. The votes are kept secret until the awards night, and they are read and tallied on the evening. As the medal is awarded to the fairest and best player in the league, those who have been suspended during the season by the AFL Tribunal (or, who avoided suspension only because of a discount for a good record or an early guilty plea) are ineligible to win the award; however, they may still continue to poll votes. Notable players who were ineligible entering the count this season included, among others: former

Brownlow Medal The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as "Charlie"), is awarded to the "best and fairest" player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by t ...

lists

Jimmy Bartel James Ross Bartel (born 4 December 1983) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A utility, tall and weighing , Bartel contributed as a midfielder, forward, an ...

Simon Black Simon Black (born 3 April 1979) is a former Australian rules football player and current assistant coach, who played his whole career with the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League (AFL). Black was a midfielder with a reputation fo ...

Chris Judd Christopher Dylan Judd (born 8 September 1983) is a former professional Australian rules footballer and captain of both the West Coast Eagles and Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Widely regarded as one of the bes ...

and

Adam Goodes Adam Roy Goodes (born 8 January 1980) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL). Goodes holds an elite place in VFL/AFL history as a dual Brownlow Medallist, d ...

, as well as captain

Matthew Pavlich Matthew Pavlich (born 31 December 1981) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A versatile player, Pavlich is widely regarded as one of the premi ...

Effect of Essendon supplements saga

In February 2013, the

Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) was a government statutory authority tasked to protect Australia's sporting integrity through the elimination of doping. The authority was part of the Department of Health's portfolio and was ...

(ASADA) and the

World Anti-Doping Agency The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; french: Agence mondiale antidopage, AMA) is a foundation initiated by the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key ...

(WADA) began an investigation into the legality of Essendon's supplements program during the 2012 AFL season and the preceding preseason. Thirty-four Essendon players – including Watson – were suspected of taking the banned peptide

Thymosin beta-4 Thymosin beta-4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''TMSB4X'' gene. Recommended INN (International Nonproprietary Name) for thymosin beta-4 is 'timbetasin', as published by the World Health Organization (WHO). The protein consists (in ...

. This quickly led to debate over whether or not a guilty verdict would see Watson stripped of the medal. The investigation and court action stretched over the following four years. Initially, the AFL Tribunal delivered a not guilty verdict in March 2015, but on appeal in the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; french: Tribunal arbitral du sport, ''TAS'') is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its c ...

(CAS), the players were found guilty in January 2016, resulting in the suspensions of all thirty-four players. An appeal lodged against that decision in the

Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland (german: Bundesgericht, french: Tribunal fédéral, it, Tribunale federale, rm, ) is the supreme court of the Swiss Confederation and at the head of the Swiss judiciary. The Federal Supreme Court ...

was dismissed in October 2016. Following the guilty verdict handed down by the CAS in January, it was announced the

would meet in February to determine whether Watson would retain his Brownlow Medal; however, this decision was delayed until the outcome of the Federal Supreme Court appeal. The final decision regarding Jobe Watson's Brownlow medal win was decided by the AFL Commission in late November 2016, with Watson retrospectively ruled ineligible for the award, and the medal then awarded to the next highest vote-getters, Cotchin and Mitchell, under the normal rules regarding ineligible players; Watson had pre-empted the decision by announcing on 11 November 2016 that he would hand back the medal. The medals were presented to Cotchin and Mitchell in a small ceremony in Melbourne on 13 December 2016. Watson's physical medal was handed back to the AFL CEO

Gillon McLachlan Gillon McLachlan (born 1973) is the chief executive officer of the Australian Football League (AFL). He was appointed to the role in 2014, succeeding Andrew Demetriou, having previously served as his deputy. In 2022 he announced his resignatio ...

in early 2017, with no plans in place to re-present or display it as of February 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brownlow Medal 2012 Australian Football League season

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