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The Essendon Football Club supplements saga was a sports controversy that occurred during the early- and mid- 2010s. It centred around the
Essendon Football Club The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their A ...
, nicknamed the Bombers, a professional
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
club based in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and playing in the
Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...
(AFL). The club was investigated starting in February 2013 by 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) over the legality of its supplements program during the 2012 AFL season and the preceding preseason. After four years of investigations and legal proceedings, thirty-four players at the club were found guilty of having used 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 ...
and incurred suspensions. The initial stages of the investigation in 2013 made no findings regarding the legality of the supplements program. Still, they highlighted a wide range of governance and duty-of-care failures relating to the program. In August 2013, the AFL fined Essendon $2 million, barred the club from the 2013 finals series, and suspended senior coach
James Hird James Albert Hird (born 4 February 1973) is a former professional Australian rules football player and past senior coach of the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Hird played as a midfielder and half-forward, but ...
and general manager Danny Corcoran as a result of these findings. The second phase of the investigation resulted in thirty-four players being issued
show cause Show or The Show may refer to: Competition, event, or artistic production * Agricultural show, associated with agriculture and animal husbandry * Animal show, a judged event in the hobby of animal fancy ** Cat show ** Dog show ** Horse show ** ...
notices by ASADA and infraction notices by the AFL in 2014, alleging the use of
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 ...
during the 2012 season. After facing an
AFL Tribunal The AFL Tribunal is the disciplinary tribunal of the Australian Football League (AFL), an Australian rules football competition. The Tribunal regulates the conduct of players, umpires, and other officials associated with the AFL and its clubs. ...
hearing in the 2014/15 offseason, the players were initially found not guilty. The decision was then appealed by WADA to 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 co ...
(CAS), which returned a guilty verdict on 12 January 2016. The guilty verdict was unsuccessfully appealed 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 ...
. The thirty-four players were suspended for two years, affecting seventeen still-active AFL players who missed the 2016 season as a result of the findings.


Supplements program details

On 28 September 2010, former captain
James Hird James Albert Hird (born 4 February 1973) is a former professional Australian rules football player and past senior coach of the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Hird played as a midfielder and half-forward, but ...
was named as Essendon's new coach from 2011 on a four-year deal. Former dual premiership-winning coach and Essendon triple-premiership winning player Mark Thompson later joined the coaching panel. Thompson introduced Essendon to performance coach
Dean Robinson Dean Robinson (born 9 September 1974) is an Australian fitness coach who has worked with a variety of both AFL and NRL clubs. Better known as ''The Weapon'', Robinson is notable for his intense training methods which were criticised following ...
, with whom he had worked at Geelong; and, at Robinson's suggestion, they were introduced to sports scientist
Stephen Dank Stephen Dank is an Australian biochemist who worked as a sports scientist at several professional sports club. He is known for his key role in two major sports drug cheating scandals, the Essendon Football Club supplements saga and the Cronull ...
. The club believed that it was lagging the rest of the competition in its supplements, particularly to aid player recovery. Subsequently, the club hired Robinson as high-performance coach in September 2011 and hired Dank as a sports scientist in November 2011. Dank was given primary responsibility to establish and run the supplements program. The program primarily comprised
subcutaneous injection Subcutaneous administration is the insertion of medications beneath the skin either by injection or infusion. A subcutaneous injection is administered as a bolus into the subcutis, the layer of skin directly below the dermis and epidermis, ...
s of supplements to improve soft tissue recovery times, to enable players to endure and benefit from a heavier training workload. The players signed consent forms for the program and were assured that all substances were ASADA-approved. The program included injections of AOD-9604,
colostrum Colostrum, also known as beestings or first milk, is the first form of milk produced by the mammary glands of mammals (including humans) immediately following delivery of the newborn. Colostrum powder is rich in high protein and low in sugar and ...
, Tribulus and an unspecified variety of thymosin supplement which was described on forms only as "thymosin" – which 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 co ...
(CAS) would later conclude was the banned, performance-enhancing
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 ...
variety. The program also included supplements in pill form and intravenous vitamin drips. The program was intended to be leading-edge, and many features of the program which were legal at the time, including Tribulus and intravenous vitamin C, were outlawed by 2014. Most of the supplements were administered away from Essendon's Windy Hill facilities. A total of 38 players consented to the program, although ASADA ultimately pursued cases against only 34 of those players, based on the supporting evidence it found through the investigation. The program of injections began in November 2011. In January 2012, Essendon's club doctor, Dr Bruce Reid, raised concerns about aspects of the program to the club. In particular, Dank had not liaised with Reid on the details of the program, which included administering substances that Reid had not personally approved, which was against the historical chain of accountability within the club. Reid wrote a letter to Hird and club general manager Paul Hamilton in January, recording his opinion that the substances Dank was administering were "playing at the edge" of legality with the potential to "read extremely badly in the press for heclub", and that he was unconvinced that either the benefits or the side effects were well understood. At that point, the club's administrators agreed that Reid's approval was required in the future; however, evidence gathered during the investigation indicated Reid was largely kept out of the loop from that point on. Player Luke Davis gave evidence that he was instructed to keep the injections secret from Reid and other coaching staff, although other players disputed that they received such instructions. In May 2012, in a meeting of club administrators including Reid and Dank, Dank was directed to cease giving injections to players; however, evidence given by players indicated that the program was reduced rather than ceased, with many continuing to receive injections until as late as July. Evidence showed that Dank continued to liaise with sports scientists and pharmacists to seek new supplements into August; investigations later described the program as being often experimental in nature. Dank was dismissed from the club in September 2012 because he had made unauthorised expenditures, the exact nature of which was not made public. Essendon's on-field performances during the 2012 season began strongly and finished weakly, a coincidence which was scrutinised in the context of the program. At the end of May, when the program began to be rewound, the club sat second on the ladder with an 8–1 record. The club then began to lose many players to soft tissue injuries; it won three of its next six games during the middle part of the year to drop to sixth; then lost its last seven games to finish eleventh with an 11–11 record. The CAS acknowledged these observations in its findings, noting that they carried no weight as evidence but describing them as "at least not inconsistent" with the timeline of the program. Essendon captain
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 ...
won the
2012 Brownlow Medal The 2012 Brownlow Medal was the 85th year the award was presented to the player adjudged the fairest and best player during the Australian Football League (AFL) home and away season. The award was won jointly by Sam Mitchell of the Hawthorn Foo ...
as the league's fairest and best player, the game's most prestigious individual award, a title later stripped from him as a result of the supplements saga. ;2012 playing list


Self-report and 2013 investigations

On 5 February 2013, Essendon reported itself to the AFL and 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) over concerns about the program. Two days later, the
Australian Crime Commission The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) is a law enforcement agency established by the Australian federal government on 1 July 2016, following the merger of the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) and CrimTrac. It has specialist ...
(ACC) released a broad report entitled "Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport", the culmination of a twelve-month investigation which outlined an increase in illegal activities in sport across Australia, including drug use, match-fixing, and links to organised crime; part of the report dealt with an increase in the seizure and use of steroids and illegal supplements, and included an anonymous reference to Essendon's program. The timing of these events led to speculation that the AFL, having been privy to a confidential briefing on the ACC report, had tipped off Essendon and encouraged the club to self-report before the report went public, but this was never proven and was denied by the AFL. Within days, Essendon removed banners and murals from the façade at Windy Hill bearing the words "whatever it takes", which was the slogan of the club's 2013 membership drive, but now carried unfortunate doping connotations; the club struggled to distance itself from the bad publicity associated with the slogan in the wake of the scandal. Following Essendon's self-reporting, ASADA and the AFL launched a joint investigation into the supplements program and conducted that investigation over the next sixteen months. During the early phase of the investigation, much attention and media speculation fell on the anti-obesity supplement AOD-9604, which had appeared on consent forms and was acknowledged to have been administered in the program, including by Essendon captain
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 ...
during a television interview. The legal status of AOD-9604 at the time of the program was uncertain: it was not explicitly listed as banned under Category S2 of 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) code, but it had not been approved for human use by the
Therapeutic Goods Administration The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is the medicine and therapeutic regulatory agency of the Australian Government. As part of the Department of Health and Aged Care, the TGA regulates the quality, supply and advertising of medicines, pa ...
and therefore could be considered as banned under the more general Category S0, which applied to any substances not approved for human use. The official position of WADA was that AOD-9604 had been considered a banned substance under Category S0 since 2011, and it clarified this publicly to ASADA on 22 April 2013. After considering its legal position, ASADA declared that it would not pursue any cases relating to AOD-9604 use before 22 April 2013, determining that it would be too difficult to achieve a guilty verdict for a supplement that had not yet explicitly been declared banned. Parallel to the AFL-ASADA investigation, Essendon commissioned former
Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
Ziggy Switkowski Zygmunt Edward "Ziggy" Switkowski, (born 1948), is a Polish Australian business executive and nuclear physics, nuclear physicist. His most public role was as the chief executive officer of Australia's largest telecommunications company Telstra fr ...
to conduct a full independent review of governance and processes of the club. Switkowski's report, which was delivered on 6 May 2013, identified significant failings in governance which would later be repeated in ASADA's findings. On 23 May 2013, Essendon CEO Ian Robson resigned, agreeing with the Switkowski report's assessment that a lack of proper process had occurred in 2012. In late July, Essendon chairman David Evans resigned due to health concerns, and was replaced by deputy chairman Paul Little, who had served on the board since 2011. At the same time as Essendon was being investigated, the
Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugby league ...
club from the
National Rugby League The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...
was also under investigation for its 2011 supplements program. Stephen Dank was a common factor, as he had been employed at Cronulla as a sports scientist during that program; he was later banned for life from involvement in rugby league for his role in that program.


August 2013 interim report and governance charges

On 2 August 2013, almost seven months into the investigation, ASADA released an interim report to the AFL and Essendon Football Club. The interim report made no findings regarding the legality of the supplements program, but highlighted a wide range of governance and duty-of-care failures related to the program. On 13 August 2013, based on the interim report, AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon charged Essendon with "conduct that is unbecoming or likely to prejudice the interests or reputation of the Australian Football League or to bring the game of football into disrepute, contrary to AFL Rule 1.6". The charges included: *Having "engaged in practices that exposed players to significant risks to their health and safety as well as the risk of using substances that were prohibited by the AFL Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Code". *Allowing "a culture of frequent, uninformed and unregulated use of the injection of supplements" at the club. *Had "failed to meaningfully inform players of the substances the subject of the program and obtain their informed consent to the administration of the substances". *Having an incomplete record-keeping system made it impossible to determine with certainty whether or not players had been administered banned supplements. *The bypassing of
human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...
practices relating specifically to the employment of Robinson and Dank. The interim report found that Essendon had intended the program to be an innovative program of unprecedented scale to deliver a competitive edge to the club, but that it had not done adequate research nor established clear lines of accountability for those implementing the program. The AFL Tribunal later commented that there was a "deplorable absence of records in the program relating to its administration." Essendon and the AFL discussed and negotiated penalties for the charges over two days in August. On 27 August 2013, five days before the final round of the 2013 home-and-away season, the following penalties were agreed to and imposed: *Essendon was fined $2 million, an Australian sporting record fine against a club. *Essendon was ruled ineligible to compete in the 2013 AFL finals series, and would be relegated to finish ninth; (the club was on track to qualify for the finals in seventh place). *Essendon was prohibited from exercising draft picks in two drafts: in 2013, its first and second-round draft picks were prohibited, and in 2014, it was prohibited from exercising the first and second-round draft picks it would have received based on its finishing position, but was granted the last draft pick in the first round. *Senior coach James Hird was suspended from involvement in any football club for twelve months, effective 25 August 2013. *Football operations manager Danny Corcoran was suspended from involvement in any football club for four months, with a further two-month suspended sentence, effective 1 October 2013. *A fine of $30,000 was imposed on assistant coach Mark Thompson. Thompson personally paid $5,000 of the fine, with Essendon covering the balance. As part of the agreement, Hird dropped legal action that he had raised against the charges in the Supreme Court. Despite the connections between Essendon's AFL and VFL teams, the VFL team was still permitted to play in the VFL finals series. Club doctor Bruce Reid was also charged and issued a suspension. He announced he would contest the charges in the
Supreme Court of Victoria The Supreme Court of Victoria is the highest court in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited and inherent jurisdiction within the state. The Supreme Court comprises ...
, and on 18 September 2013, the AFL dropped the charges. The league's official statement concluded: "Reid strongly supports the AFL in its fundamental priority of looking after the health and welfare of players. He shares his concern over the serious circumstances which gave rise to the supplements saga at the Essendon Football Club ... The AFL accepts Dr Reid’s position and withdraws all charges against him, without penalty." Hird remained on the Essendon payroll and received his full salary during the suspension. The AFL initially demanded that the payments stopped when they were made public in December 2013 but acquiesced after determining that its legal position was weak. In Hird's absence, Mark Thompson stepped up to serve as senior coach in the 2014 season. At the time of the penalties for governance failures, no charges were laid against any players, whether or not banned substances had been used was unproven, and the ASADA and AFL investigation remained open.


Charges against players


2014: show-cause notices

After sixteen months of investigations, ASADA issued
show cause notice An order to show cause is a type of court order that requires one or more of the parties to a case to justify, explain, or prove something to the court. Courts commonly use orders to show cause when the judge needs more information before decidi ...
s to 34 players from Essendon's 2012 player list on 12 June 2014, alleging that they had been administered Thymosin beta-4, having determined that it had sufficient evidence that this was the type of thymosin used in the program. Unlike AOD-9604, it was certain that Thymosin beta-4 was considered banned during the program. ASADA did not allege that the players had used the substances intentionally; rather, the club had knowingly injected the players with the banned substance, and that the players were unaware that it was illegal. The players had ten days to respond, which would be followed by a tribunal hearing in which the burden of proof fell on ASADA to prove that the banned substance was administered to the players. Under the anti-doping codes, players found guilty would receive, as a starting point, a two-year suspension; however, if they were able to demonstrate they were unwittingly given a prohibited substance, they may have been eligible for a 50 per cent reduction. The names of the 34 players were initially suppressed under court order, and were formally released only after the eventual guilty verdict in January 2016. While this was progressing, Essendon performed well under Mark Thompson during the 2014 season, finishing seventh on the ladder and being eliminated in the first week of the finals. Thompson left the club altogether after the season. Shortly after the show-cause notices were issued, Essendon and James Hird challenged the legal validity of the joint investigation that ASADA had conducted with the AFL, temporarily putting the notices on hold. The club argued that although AFL rules allowed it to compel its players and officials to be interviewed, ASADA had no legal right to do the same – and therefore that evidence collected by the AFL in a compulsory interview was inadmissible for an ASADA investigation. The case came before the Melbourne division of the
Federal Court of Australia The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...
on 27 June 2014; and on 19 September 2014, Justice John Middleton of the Federal Court dismissed the challenge and found investigation to be lawful. In the decision, he ruled that ASADA had actively used the AFL's power to compel interviews to overcome its own inability to do likewise; but, that this was within the rule of law and with the Essendon players' knowledge, because all interviews were knowingly held in the presence of an ASADA representative. On 1 October 2014, Essendon announced that it would not appeal the ruling, stating that to do so would act against the interests of the players. Hird, however, acting in an individual capacity and "on a matter of principle", appealed the ruling to a full bench of the Federal Court. Media commentators speculated that Hird's action would result in his termination as Essendon coach, and Hird himself later testified in court that he had been advised as much, but this did not occur and he remained to coach in 2015. Hird returned to court in early November 2014, and his appeal was dismissed on 29 January 2015. Hird considered a High Court appeal, but on 27 February 2015 announced that he had decided against proceeding.


2014–2015: AFL Tribunal hearing against players

After Essendon's Federal Court challenge was dismissed in October 2014 (but while Hird's was still ongoing), ASADA issued fresh show-cause notices to the players on 17 October 2014. The players had two weeks to respond to the notices and exercised their right not to respond. On 13 November 2014, the Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel concluded that sufficient evidence existed against the players, and they were placed on the register of findings. The following day, the AFL issued infraction notices to the players. The players faced a closed hearing of the AFL Tribunal over several sessions between December 2014 and February 2015. The burden of proof fell to ASADA, and the required standard of proof to return a guilty verdict was "comfortable satisfaction". Upon issuing of the infractions notices on 14 November, players could accept provisional suspensions, meaning they would be ineligible to play AFL-sanctioned matches until the Tribunal hearing was finalised, but that they could continue to train in the pre-season, and that time served during the provisional suspension would be counted as part of any final suspension. Most players accepted the provisional suspensions immediately;
Dustin Fletcher Dustin Fletcher (born 7 May 1975) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played his entire 23-season career for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He is widely acknowledged as one of the fines ...
and
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 ...
both participated in the 2014 International Rules Series test match on 22 November before beginning their suspensions;
Alwyn Davey Alwyn Davey, Jr. (born 15 May 1984) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club of the Australian Football League (AFL) between 2007 and 2013. Early life Davey is of Indigenous Australian descent with t ...
and
Leroy Jetta Leroy Jetta (born 6 July 1988) is an Australian rules footballer who last played with the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League. An outstanding junior, Jetta was twice named in the Under 18 All-Australian Team as well as bein ...
, neither of whom was on the Essendon list any longer, both opted to play the 2014/15
Northern Territory Football League The Northern Territory Football League (NTFL) is an Australian rules football semi-professional league operating in Darwin in the Northern Territory. The league is one of few (and the highest level) Australian Rules competitions played during ...
season (which runs over the Australian summer), and did not begin their provisional suspensions until February 2015. After the tribunal hearings were complete, it was announced that a final decision was expected in late March. This meant that the thirty-four players, including seventeen still at Essendon, would be under provisional suspension during the 2015
NAB Challenge In the Australian Football League (AFL), previously the Victorian Football League (VFL), the pre-season competition, known during its history by a variety of sponsored names and most recently as the NAB Cup, was an annual Australian rules foot ...
pre-season matches. All twenty-five Essendon players who were at the club during the supplements program received permission to miss the series, including eight players who were not facing charges but were permitted to stand aside to protect their teammates' anonymity; of those eight players, four elected to play. Essendon was given permission to field VFL-listed players from its reserves team, and to sign players from state leagues to temporary contracts to serve as top-up players during the NAB Challenge. On 31 March, the week before the opening of the 2015 AFL season, the tribunal announced that it had found the 34 players not guilty. The tribunal confirmed that Thymosin beta-4 was a banned substance during the program, but that it was not comfortably satisfied that the players had been administered the substance. The three-member tribunal was unanimous in its decision. The tribunal repeated prior criticisms of the governance of the Essendon's supplements program, which had been seen in the ASADA interim report and the Switkowski report. As a result of the verdict, the provisional suspensions on the players were lifted, and all affected players were eligible to play in Round 1. ASADA and the AFL were given a window of 21 days to appeal the decision. The verdict was handed down in private, and few other details about the reasons for the decision were released.


2015 season and WADA appeal

On 20 April 2015, ASADA announced that it would not appeal the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal's not-guilty verdicts. ASADA's decision then allowed 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) to initiate its own review and appeal, and it announced its intention to appeal on 11 May. The appeal was a '' de novo'' hearing of the charges in the Swiss headquartered
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 co ...
(CAS). The players were permitted to continue playing throughout the appeal process. In the process of lodging its appeal, the CAS erroneously made public on its website the names of the players; the names were promptly removed, but the players' anonymity was for the first time compromised. On-field, Essendon's form deteriorated dramatically in 2015, attributed in part to the mental impact of the WADA appeal. The club held a 3–3 record before WADA announced its appeal, before finishing 15th with a record of 6–16. Hird resigned as coach with three weeks remaining in the season. Chairman Paul Little, after chairing the club since July 2013, also stepped down after the season, and was replaced by
Lindsay Tanner Lindsay James Tanner (born 24 April 1956) is a former Australian politician. A member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he represented the seat of Melbourne in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2010 and served as Minister for Finance ...
. CAS began to hear WADA's appeal on 16 November 2015 in
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
. CAS's panel of arbitrators comprised
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
barrister Michael Beloff QC,
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-based barrister Romano Subiotto QC and
Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...
barrister James Spigelman QC.


2016: Court of Arbitration for Sport verdict

On 12 January 2016, CAS handed down a guilty verdict on the thirty-four Essendon players, overturning the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal's not-guilty verdict, after finding it was comfortably satisfied that the players were injected with Thymosin beta-4. Key to the appeal's success was the treatment of evidence: the CAS rejected the AFL Tribunal's approach, known as " links in the chain", where any individual chain of evidence is dismissed if any one link within it cannot be proven, and endorsed WADA's approach, known as "strands in the cable", where individual evidence chains with missing links may still be accepted if the combination of all such chains forms a sufficiently strong case. A complete account of the verdict and the arguments made by each side was released publicly. Vital to the case was determining whether or not the unspecified Thymosin used in the program was the banned Thymosin Beta-4 or a different, legal variety of Thymosin. A paper trail had confirmed that Dank had been dispensed Thymosin Beta-4 by the Como Compounding Pharmacy; however, no direct evidence was found that it was this Thymosin rather than a different legal Thymosin which had been administered to players, and this missing evidence link had been key to the AFL Tribunal's not guilty verdict under the 'links in the chain' method. Part of the WADA submission to the appeal, which the CAS accepted in its verdict, was that Thymosin Beta-4 was the only form of Thymosin which would have had the soft tissue recovery effect that Dank had attributed to it – text messages from Dank had specifically described Thymosin as the cornerstone of the soft tissue recovery program. Two urine samples taken from Essendon players during 2012 were also found to contain elevated Thymosin Beta-4; the levels were not high enough to fail the drug test, but they added to the cable of evidence against the players. Significantly, the CAS also determined that the players were "significantly at fault", disqualifying them from any penalty reduction. This was considered a surprise, as press throughout the entire saga had opined that by having followed the direction of club officials, the players would be found to have had no significant fault or negligence, qualifying them for a 50% penalty reduction. Key to this finding was the revelation that none of the eighteen different players who had been drug tested on a total of thirty occasions during the program had declared the supplements injections on their doping control forms, and that some had withheld information from the club doctor on Dank's instruction – revelations which damaged the credibility of other evidence put forward by the players. Consequently, the players were handed the full minimum suspensions of two years – these were backdated to 31 March 2015, which was the date of the original AFL Tribunal not guilty verdict; and, with credit taken for the periods of provisional suspension already served during the 2014/15 offseason, resulted in most of the suspensions running until November 2016.


2016: Federal Supreme Court appeal

Following the CAS finding, the sole remaining avenue for appeal was 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 ...
, under whose jurisdiction the CAS sits. An appeal was lodged on 10 February, arguing that the CAS did not have legal grounds to conduct a ''de novo'' hearing and could have appealed the AFL Tribunal's verdict only based on legal error or gross unreasonableness. During the year, both parties submitted paperwork in
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
to the Federal Supreme Court. The court deliberated on the written submissions, and on 11 October 2016 dismissed the appeal, upholding the guilty verdicts and the suspensions: The players did not seek an injunction against their suspensions when appealing with the Federal Supreme Court, meaning that they would have served their 2016 suspensions even if the guilty verdicts had been cleared. This was to eliminate any risk that a new, two-year period of suspension could be ordered to be served in full if the appeal were unsuccessful.


Penalties

Following the CAS's guilty verdict on 12 January 2016, all affected players were formally named and began their suspensions immediately. The two-year ineligibility period was backdated to 31 March 2015, and credit was taken for provisional suspensions served during the 2014/15 offseason. This meant that most players were suspended until November 2016, and missed the entire 2016 season.
Alwyn Davey Alwyn Davey, Jr. (born 15 May 1984) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club of the Australian Football League (AFL) between 2007 and 2013. Early life Davey is of Indigenous Australian descent with t ...
and
Leroy Jetta Leroy Jetta (born 6 July 1988) is an Australian rules footballer who last played with the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League. An outstanding junior, Jetta was twice named in the Under 18 All-Australian Team as well as bein ...
, who had served shorter provisional suspensions, were suspended until February 2017, which saw them miss the end of the 2015/16 NTFL season, the 2016 winter season and most of the 2016/17 NTFL season. Under the terms of the ban players were not permitted to: *Play Australian rules football at any level; *Enter the club premises or clubrooms on game day; *Train under the direction of a club-devised program; or *Return to their clubs' training sessions until two months before their bans expired. Because of these limitations, the bans also covered most forms of coaching. As such, two former players (
Mark McVeigh Mark McVeigh (born 26 January 1981) is a former professional Australian rules footballer for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League. He served as the caretaker senior coach of the Greater Western Sydney Giants followin ...
and
Henry Slattery Henry Slattery (born 22 January 1986) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Slattery was recruited by Essendon with selection 46 in the 2004 A ...
) who were employed as non-playing coaches were suspended from their jobs, and players serving as playing coaches in country leagues were suspended from performing either function. The bans extended to any sport administered by a signatory to the WADA code, precluding active involvement in almost any organised sport during 2016. Players were not completely banned from involvement with the AFL, and were permitted to: *Attend AFL matches, including those involving Essendon, as spectators; *Continue to communicate with their teammates and coaches on a social level; *Train away from the club with other banned players, except in a club-devised program, and; *Work in the media at AFL games The thirty-four players suspended are listed in the below table, grouped by their status at the time of the CAS verdict. On 15 November 2016, after the final avenue for appeal had been exhausted with the Federal Supreme Court, 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 ...
reviewed the
2012 Brownlow Medal The 2012 Brownlow Medal was the 85th year the award was presented to the player adjudged the fairest and best player during the Australian Football League (AFL) home and away season. The award was won jointly by Sam Mitchell of the Hawthorn Foo ...
, which had been won by
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 ...
as the fairest and best player in the league during the season in which the supplements program was in effect. The rules governing the Brownlow Medal make a player ineligible to win in a season in which he is suspended; and the commission ruled that Watson's doping suspensions rendered him retrospectively ineligible under that rule. Watson was stripped of the medal, and it was awarded jointly to the players who polled the second-most votes:
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 ...
() and Sam Mitchell (). Watson had pre-empted the decision to strip him of the award, announcing his intention to hand back the medal four days earlier. Watson was not stripped of his place in the
2012 All-Australian team The 2012 All-Australian team represents the best performed Australian Football League (AFL) players during the 2012 season. It was announced on 17 September as a complete Australian rules football team of 22 players. The team is honorary and does ...
, which was the other AFL award he received for his on-field performances during 2012.


2016 AFL season

The CAS verdict meant that Essendon's squad was suddenly twelve players short for the 2016 season. The club received permission to recruit ten top-up players from lower levels on contracts lasting until 31 October 2016 to supplement its list. The top-ups had to have either been on an AFL list in 2014 or 2015, with no more than one player taken from any single state-level club; or have been a VFL-listed player from Essendon's own reserves team. An allowance for the top-ups was made in Essendon's
salary cap In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players' salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Sever ...
. The top-up players were:
Ryan Crowley Ryan Crowley (born 5 March 1984) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Fremantle Football Club and the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He played as a midfielder and specialise ...
, James Kelly,
Matthew Stokes Mathew Stokes (born 22 November 1984) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played with the Geelong Football Club and the Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early life Mathew Stokes grew up in ...
, Matt Dea,
James Polkinghorne James Polkinghorne (1788 – 15 September 1851) was a champion Cornish wrestler of the 19th century. He was born in 1788 at St Keverne, Cornwall, United Kingdom but spent much of his life at St. Columb Major, where he ran a pub called the Red ...
,
Jonathan Simpkin Jonathan Simpkin (born 28 October 1987) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club, Hawthorn Football Club and Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Nicknamed "Joffa", ...
,
Mark Jamar Mark Jamar (born 9 August 1983) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Melbourne Football Club and Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early life Jamar was born and raised in the c ...
,
Sam Grimley Sam Grimley (born 3 January 1991) is a former Australian rules football player who played for the Hawthorn Football Club and Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League. After Hawthorn won the 2008 premiership, the Hawthorn rec ...
,
Nathan Grima Nathan Grima (born 5 August 1985) is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the North Melbourne Football Club and Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Early career Originally from Tasmania, ...
and
Sam Michael Samuel David Michael (born 29 April 1971) is an Australian motor sports engineer and designer, who held senior positions with Formula One constructors Williams and McLaren. He is currently employed by Supercar team Triple Eight Race Engineeri ...
. The four other AFL clubs with suspended Essendon players on their lists (Melbourne, Port Adelaide, St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs) were allowed to upgrade a rookie to the senior list, which would not normally be allowed to cover a suspended player, but were not granted top-up players. The twelve suspended players still at Essendon continued to be paid about 95% of their salaries by the club during their suspensions. Stewart Crameri continued to be paid by the Western Bulldogs, with the Bulldogs suing Essendon to recover the cost. Melbourne, Port Adelaide and St Kilda ceased payments to their suspended players, those players suing Essendon privately for their salaries. By September 2017, the club had reached out-of-court compensation deals with all players, covering potential and actual loss of earnings and mental anguish; the sizes of the deals were confidential, but the largest payouts were understood to have gone to Jobe Watson, who was stripped of the Brownlow Medal, and Stewart Crameri, who missed the Western Bulldogs' 2016 premiership. Despite the top-up players, the weakened Essendon team was mostly uncompetitive during 2016, finishing last on the ladder with just three wins to win the
wooden spoon Wooden Spoon may refer to: * Wooden spoon, implement * Wooden spoon (award) A wooden spoon is an award that is given to an individual or team that has come last in a competition. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous e ...
for the first time since
1933 Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wis ...
. The club's win–loss record of 3–19 was the second-worst in club history, and included a club-record seventeen-game losing streak. Financially, the club posted a $9.8 million uninsured operating loss for the season, with roughly half of the cost in legal fees and compensation payments to the guilty players, and with reduced receipts and the payments to top-up players also having a significant effect. Ten of the twelve suspended players re-signed with Essendon for 2017; the two who departed were
Michael Hibberd Michael George Hibberd (born 3 January 1990) is a professional Australian rules footballer playing for the Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A defender, tall and weighing , Hibberd plays primarily on the hal ...
, who was traded to , and Tayte Pears, who retired. There was speculation that the players could have left the club ''en masse'', with lawyers arguing that Essendon's role in the scandal could have been considered a breach of contract, allowing the players to get out of their playing contracts and bypass other AFL player movement restrictions to qualify as delisted
free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...
s, but no players sought this option. Of the ten top-up players, only two (James Kelly and Matt Dea) remained with the club beyond the 2016 season: Kelly played one further season before retiring, and Dea played two more seasons before being delisted.


Case against Stephen Dank

The AFL Tribunal heard cases against sports scientist Stephen Dank during the summer of 2014/15, and he was found guilty of ten charges. The charges upheld against Dank covered a wide range of illegal supplements that he trafficked in, attempted to traffic in, or was complicit in attempted trafficking when the AFL registered him. The upheld charges were: *Attempted trafficking and complicity in attempted trafficking in Thymosin Beta-4, Hexarelin and Humanofort to Essendon in 2012 *Trafficking in Mechano Growth Factor to a support staff member of the Carlton Football Club in 2012 *Attempted trafficking and complicity in attempted trafficking in
CJC-1295 CJC-1295, also known as DAC:GRF (short for drug affinity complex:growth hormone-releasing factor), is a synthetic analogue of growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) (also known as ''growth hormone-releasing factor'' (''GRF'')) and a growth horm ...
to the Gold Coast Football Club in 2010 *Trafficking in GHRP-6 and complicity in attempted trafficking in Hexarelin,
SARMS Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators or SARMs are a class of androgen receptor ligands that maintain some of the desirable effects of androgens, such as preventing osteoporosis and muscle loss while reducing risks of developing prostate ca ...
, CJC-1295 and GHRP6 to a baseball club in 2012 *Trafficking in GHRP6 and Mechano Growth Factor to the Medical Rejuvenation Clinic in 2011–2012. The AFL suspended Dank from involvement in the sport for life. Since most Australian sporting organisations honour sanctions imposed by other leagues, this effectively blackballed Dank from major Australian sport. Dank was found not guilty of twenty-one other charges, including trafficking charges and all charges related to administering the supplements. Dank appealed the ten guilty verdicts, but the appeals were dismissed after he failed to attend his session with the AFL appeals board in November 2016. WADA lodged an appeal against the twenty-one not guilty verdicts in June 2015.


Other consequences

Dean Robinson, who was sacked by the club in February 2013 when it self-reported the program, brought an unfair dismissal case against the club, which was settled in October 2014 for a $1 million payout. Most of the club's expenses related to the scandal, including legal bills and the payout to Robinson, were covered by Essendon's insurers,
Chubb Limited Chubb Limited is an American company incorporated in Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland. It is the parent company of Chubb, a global provider of insurance products covering property and casualty, accident and health, reinsurance, and life insurance an ...
. Hird, however, was left with a large personal legal bill, because the insurance policy for administrative staff covered only the defence of a legal action, not initiating a legal action against others. Hird unsuccessfully sued Chubb for approximately $660,000 in costs in his 2014 court challenges of legality of the AFL/ASADA joint investigation, but it was later revealed that a benefactor who was not publicly identified stepped in to cover the costs. Hird's total legal costs from the saga, including covering ASADA's costs in his failed cases against it, totalled $1.74 million. Former player Hal Hunter, who was on the rookie list during the program but was not among the thirty-four players suspended, sued the club to obtain full documentation about what substances he was administered at the club. After a year-long legal battle, the Supreme Court ruled in early 2016 that Essendon had already provided Hunter with all documentation it had; Hunter was initially ordered to cover Essendon's legal costs for the lawsuit, but that was reversed after mediation. Similarly to the other 34 players, Hunter received a compensation package from Essendon for involving him in the program. Following adverse findings of the program,
WorkSafe Victoria WorkSafe Victoria is the trading name of the Victorian WorkCover Authority, a statutory authority of the state government of Victoria, Australia. History After being renamed in 2014 as Victorian Work-cover Authority by Minister Gordon Rich- ...
performed an investigation. In November 2015, it convicted Essendon of two breaches of the state's Occupational Health and Safety Act for failing to provide the players with a workplace free of health risks. The club was fined $200,000 for the breaches. The handling of the investigation and prosecution by both the AFL and ASADA was criticised by some media personnel and other public figures. There were suggestions that a parliamentary inquiry should be held into the saga, but this was ruled out by
Greg Hunt Gregory Andrew Hunt (born 18 November 1965) is a former Australian politician who was the Minister for Health between January 2017 and May 2022. He was a Liberal Party member of the House of Representatives between November 2001 and 2022, repre ...
,
Minister for Sport A Ministry of Sports or Ministry of Youth and Sports is a kind of government ministry found in certain countries with responsibility for the regulation of sports, particularly those participated in by young people. The Ministry of Youth and Spo ...
, in March 2017.


Timeline of major events


See also

*
Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks supplements saga The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks footy supplements saga was a sports controversy which began in 2011. The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, a professional rugby league club playing in the National Rugby League (NRL). The NRL later offered all five players ...
*
Drugs in the Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) started in 1897 and was originally called the Victorian Football League until the name was changed in 1990 due to the expansion to the other Australian states. AFL is seen as an iconic Australian sport which ...
*
Drugs in sport in Australia Australia has been at the forefront in the fight against doping in sport. It was one of the first countries to establish a sports anti-doping agency and is a member of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Australia abides by World Anti-Doping Code. In ...
*
List of Australian sports controversies This is a list of major sports controversies in Australia or concerning Australian sportspeople. These controversies cover areas such as rules, match fixing, cheating, sportsmanship, doping and sport administration. They have generated large sca ...
*
List of doping cases in sport (E) This is a sub-list from List of doping cases in sport representing a full list of surnames starting with ''E''. References

{{reflist, 2 Lists of doping cases, E ...
*
List of sporting scandals This is a list of major sports scandals. American football scandals * Minnesota Vikings boat party scandal (2005) – a sex party involving several members of the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL) * National Football Lea ...


References


Further reading

*Le Grand, Chip (2015). ''The Straight Dope: the inside story of sport's biggest drug scandal''. Melbourne University Publishing.


External links

*
World Anti-Doping Agency v. Thomas Bellchambers et al., Australian Football League, Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority — Arbitral Award delivered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport
' * * * * {{Essendon supplements saga Controversies in Australia Essendon Football Club Australian rules football controversies Doping cases in Australian rules football Drugs in sport Sports controversies Sports scandals in Australia