ASADA ready with lifetime sport bans
Jacquelin Magnay
The Australian
September 19, 2013 12:00AM
THE Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority is preparing a slew of infraction notices against Essendon players and club officials that could result in lifetime bans from all sport.
Essendon coach James Hird, people and development manager Danny Corcoran, former high-performance manager Dean Robinson and sports scientist Stephen Dank, as well as players involved in the injecting scene, are all in ASADA's sights.
However, club doctor Bruce Reid, who raised questions about the supplements program, is likely to avoid an infraction notice, sources have indicated to The Australian.
Details of ASADA's continued pursuit of Essendon emerged as the AFL yesterday withdrew serious allegations against Dr Reid of bringing the game into disrepute.
The development validated a report in The Australian last week that the AFL commission would not proceed with charges against the doctor.
The report, savagely mocked by AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou as garbage, said that Dr Reid would be "cleared of all charges and face no penalty for his role in failing to prevent Essendon players being exposed to health risks and, potentially, anti-doping violations through the injection of exotic supplements". A joint press release yesterday morning from the AFL and Dr Reid concluded: "The AFL accepts Dr Reid's position and withdraws all charges against him, without penalty."
While Chip Le Grand's article had correctly predicted the AFL's withdrawal from court proceedings due today, Mr Demetriou strongly denied he owed Le Grand or The Australian an apology. "Le Grand's story was wrong," the AFL chief executive said yesterday.
"The report said that (AFL chief commissioner) Mike Fitzpatrick had approached (Essendon president) Paul Little to do a deal.
"That was wrong. Fitzpatrick did not."
The report said the AFL had moved to abandon its case against Dr Reid to avoid answering allegations of bias about its handling of the supplement scandal. "That's wrong too," Demetriou said.
It is believed the AFL decision not to push ahead against Dr Reid was, in part, due to the fact that an adverse finding could affect his standing as a doctor. If that happened, it would ultimately be a bigger penalty than administered to Hird (a 12-month suspension), assistant coach Mark Thompson (a $30,000 fine) and Corcoran (a four-month suspension).
Essendon was thrown out of the finals. For his part, Dr Reid will not return to the club until January.
ASADA officials are preparing the legal paperwork to issue infraction notices to at least seven AFL players and officials but the final numbers of those who may be implicated may be more than a dozen.
The Australian has learned that the first tranche of infringement notices will be issued at the conclusion of the current AFL season, marking the "first step" in several sanctions that will be sought by ASADA. Players and officials face bans of up to two years for taking the supplements, but it is believed ADADA is looking at issuing some of the infraction notices with trafficking infractions, which could bring about a life ban.
Any penalty handed down will be imposed across all of sport.
Mr Demetriou said that he had no knowledge of any infraction notices that were about to be handed down by ASADA.
