ASADA scales back Sharks interviews
Date
May 13, 2013
Brad Walter
Chief Rugby League Writer
The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority remains prepared to interview any Cronulla player willing to give evidence into investigations into alleged drug use at the club in 2011, but has scrapped plans to question every member of the club's squad that season.
Despite being given the green light by NRL chief executive Dave Smith to resume interviews with Cronulla players after a legal dispute over the level of co-operation provided by Wade Graham, ASADA has advised the Sharks' lawyers they do not plan to do so.
The shock move fuelled speculation in league circles on Sunday that ASADA was either close to laying charges against players or conceding defeat in the doping scandal, but Fairfax Media was told the investigation would continue.
However, ASADA will now focus more on other lines of inquiry as the first interview with Graham proved fruitless and investigators believe their resources can be better utilised elsewhere.
''Nothing has really changed since the interviews stopped with Graham except that ASADA has been out doing other things instead of waiting for the players,'' a source told Fairfax Media. ''ASADA remains ready to interview any player who wants to come forward and co-operate but they won't be doing interviews that aren't useful.''
The decision not to resume the player interviews is set to drag out the scandal, and there are genuine fears that it won't be resolved before the end of the season.
''The reason player interviews were a priority was because people wanted to expedite matters but if nothing is going to be coming out of the interviews then ASADA will go around and collect all the other evidence it needs,'' the source said.
''ASADA would stop what it was doing in two seconds flat and interview any player who wants to co-operate but they won't waste their time or the players' time doing interviews where lawyers won't allow the players to talk. If people do want things to move forward more quickly then the key to that is the players, but ASADA has other avenues to chase things down.''
Smith initially outlined a time frame for interviews that he believed would have allowed the NRL to issue infraction notices and stand down players before Origin I on June 5, but that now seems impossible.
''ASADA has assured us they are not backing off in terms of the investigation and the need to get to the bottom of these issues,'' Smith said. ''We are fully committed to assisting ASADA and seeing this through to the right conclusion.''
Smith also defended the NRL for not having taken action over information provided by the Sharks from the findings of an internal club investigation, which was outlined in detail by Fairfax Media on March 10.
The official report, which alleges players received injections in the Sharks' away dressing room on the Friday before their first game of the 2011 season and for up to 11 weeks, was given to the NRL last month.
It was also revealed that an email trail linking the four sacked members of the Sharks' football department demonstrates they feared possible doping breaches at the club at least two months before May 29, 2011, when sports scientist Stephen Dank was told to leave.
Information from a leaked copy of the report was published in News Ltd papers on Sunday after lawyers for the media company determined it was not covered by an indefinite injunction obtained by the Sharks in the NSW Supreme Court.
''Today's reports reinforce what we have said from the outset which is that these matters are serious and we are confident that ASADA will push on with the investigation through whatever means they determine to be the best,'' Smith said.
''They are the experts and the statutory body responsible with access to much wider information sources than us, including the Crime Commission … ASADA has had the Kavanagh report longer than we have and it is significant they have not been able to issue an infraction notice on the basis of that report, so there can be no suggestion that we could have acted on it independently beyond the actions of the Cronulla board.''
