Whether or not Dank is actually guilty of anything, he talks a good game and makes some valid points about this whole farce of a process.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/dank-says-no-thanks-to-helping-afl-probe-20130506-2j3nm.html
Sports scientist Stephen Dank has shut the door on a request to speak to the AFL integrity commission - saying the complete lack of respect from the organisation and its head Andrew Demetriou has ruined any chance of that happening.
Dank has ripped into the process that has been undertaken and taken a swipe at the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, saying they have botched the process in the same way the AFL have. It was always going to be tough for Demetriou to get any help from Dank - the AFL boss is one of many involved in litigation with Dank.
''I'm not interested in meeting them for one reason - had they shown me courtesy, respect and etiquette for one day in the last 12 weeks - but the reality is that the Essendon Football Club through [chief executive] Ian Robson and [coach] James Hird and [chairman] David Evans gave a press conference, and at no stage was there any integrity offered to me prior to that. Might I add in any of the 12 weeks subsequent to that has that been different.''
Dank says that if the approach was different the result would have been different. ''Had the AFL rang me and said, 'Stephen, I think there may be a problem and I think we need to have a chat,' I would have been on the plane to Melbourne and said, 'OK boys, let's have a chat.'''
Dank is fired up about the way things have been handled. ''I'm very angry because I've been badly disrespected - because in this period of time I've heard nothing, and then I get a call from the integrity manager after the AFL CEO saw fit to make innumerable comments about in the days of this saga. It's the same with ASADA
I would have been happy to discuss their issues they had.''
Dank doesn't think they were watching him and waiting for him to trip up. ''I don't know what their strategy is, or was at the time - but the fact is there is a certain process by which you have to go about things, and I feel as though the AFL and ASADA have significantly abandoned those processes.
''Had they maintained that and respected that process, without doubt they would have been entitled to some co-operation to discuss or help these two regulatory bodies with their investigation. At the end of the day no one has shown respect to me or to the process. There is a certain way you go about these things - contacting people - witnesses, the way you go about directing a charge sheet and managing the evidence. This is about managing the process, and in legal terms this process is very tightly dictated to, and might I say it should have been in the ASADA investigation, and it hasn't been. I question the way they have gone about their business. If they, in any way, had tried to maintain a dutiful process, a respective process, my position may have been different.''
WADA-AMA ‏@wada_amahttps://twitter.com/wada_ama/status/331536149870948352
