Cash-strapped Sharks launch a bid to fast-track doping inquiry
by: Brent Read
From: The Australian
June 29, 2013 12:00AM
CRONULLA chairman Damian Keogh will hold talks with the NRL next week and hasn't ruled out travelling to Canberra to meet officials from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency as he looks to fast-track the investigation into the club.
Concerned by the ongoing drain on the club's finances brought about by the ASADA investigation into supplement use at the Sharks two years ago, Keogh has organised a meeting with NRL chief executive Dave Smith to discuss the situation, which appears to have hit an impasse since the cancellation of player interviews last month.
The club and a group of its players remain under investigation over a period in 2011 when controversial sports scientist Steve Dank was at the club. Dank is yet to be interviewed by ASADA but he is expected to be called before the anti-doping agency under new legislation passed this week.
Under the legislation, a person can be fined $5100 each day they refuse to co-operate with ASADA. While the legislation will affect Dank, it is unlikely to have any direct impact on the investigation into the Sharks because Cronulla players had already agreed to be interviewed.
Those interviews were cancelled by ASADA over a perceived lack of co-operation. Under the legislation, players retain the right to refuse to answer questions on the grounds of self-incrimination, one of the key sticking points which led to the current stand-off.
Keogh wants the matter resolved and will go to the NRL, and possibly ASADA, to get it sorted.
"We will wait to see what the NRL view is," Keogh said. "If they don't have much clarity about where things are going, I am certainly not averse to a trip to Canberra to find out what's going on.
"There is still a major shadow being cast. We are making moves to move forward and we have some really good people helping us out. But the ongoing issue with it that concerns me is the economic harm that is being caused.
"It's massive economic harm on the club."
Keogh estimates the inquiry has already cost the club in excess of $1 million and the fear is that it will drag beyond the end of the 2013 season and into 2014.
If that happens, the damage will be devastating. The Sharks are yet to bed down a major sponsor and the club is already in a situation where it will be forced to rely on the NRL for financial support.
"You would like to have a natural conclusion or time line about what's going to happen," Keogh said. "We can't afford that to drag on again. We're not the wealthiest side in the competition. I would rather a conclusion to it prior to the 2014 season.
"We're talking about something that happened for 10 weeks back in 2011. But at the same time we are more than interested to sit back and see how the AFL stuff unfolds."
While the NRL investigation appears to have stalled, the investigation into AFL club Essendon is in full swing, highlighted by an admission from Bombers captain Jobe Watson this week that he was injected with the banned substance AOD-9604 last year.
Next week shapes as a decisive one for Cronulla. It is understood that at a board meeting last Thursday, directors also discussed the futures of the four officials sacked in the wake of the ASADA investigation.
The board was given legal advice over the quartet and depending on the NRL's reaction to that advice, all four could be reinstated in the near future.
