AFL to emerge as big losers from ASADA inquiry but NRL faces rosier report card
Date
July 19, 2014 - 11:00PM
Roy Masters
Rugby League Columnist
A bold prediction: the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority inquiry into peptide use at Essendon and Cronulla will eventually bring down the AFL leadership, while the reputation of the NRL will be enhanced, particularly with government.
Essendon and Cronulla will suffer loss of players and money; the Bombers will hurt more on the playing field, while the Sharks will suffer more financially.
When the supplement saga erupted nationally in February last year, federal ministers briefed senior Melbourne journalists, extolling the efficiency of the AFL and lampooning the NRL administration.
Pressure to perform: AFL chief executive: Gillon McLachlan.
Pressure to perform: AFL chief executive: Gillon McLachlan. Photo: Joe Armao
Rugby league was also perceived to have the bigger drug problem, and the AFL made much out of seven NRL clubs being mentioned in the Australian Crime Commission report.
It did not matter that incoming NRL chief executive Dave Smith had not begun working at Rugby League Central when he was briefed in Canberra by the ACC, nor that the seven NRL clubs were eventually distilled to one.
ASADA is a quasi-government body and someone gave authority for the anti-doping body to combine with the AFL in a joint investigation, the very grounds for Essendon taking action in the Federal Court to rule it unlawful and dismiss the 34 show-cause letters sent to their players.
Trying to steer his club out of the darkness: Sharks chairman Damian Keogh.
Trying to steer his club out of the darkness: Sharks chairman Damian Keogh. Photo: Michelle Mossop
The NRL took two significantly different paths.
It did not join with ASADA in a common investigation and, while reminding the Cronulla players that NRL rules require them to co-operate with ASADA officials, there was no compulsion on them to self-incriminate.
Therefore, the chances of the NRL being hauled to court by either Cronulla or its players, are low.
There are also two significant differences between Essendon and Cronulla in terms of the possible sanctions to players.
One concerns the substances alleged to have been used: thymosin beta-4 at Essendon and CJC-1295 and GHRP-6 at Cronulla. All three are banned by ASADA.
However, lawyers for the players at both clubs will argue there was no certainty they were injected with these substances.
The Melbourne compounding chemist asked by sports scientist Stephen Dank to supply supplements can not be certain he gave Dank thymosin beta- 4 and Dank has refused to respond to the show-cause notice ASADA has issued him.
The evidence Cronulla players were injected with CJC-1295 and GHRP-6 rests initially in an internal report commissioned by the old Cronulla board.
Lawyers will argue it is hearsay after the fact and, in any case, the report is subject to legal and professional privilege and can not be used unless privilege is waived.
It is the property of the Cronulla club and chairman Damian Keogh made it clear privilege would not be waived, saying, “My view is there are serious questions how some of the interviews were conducted to the point where we would hold it as a privileged document and not a true representation of the facts.”
The second difference between the clubs concerns the drug-taking regimes: Cronulla was an ad hoc, amateurish, corner store operation, while Essendon’s was a sophisticated undertaking of industrial scale, described in the Switkowski report, commissioned by Essendon, as “a pharmacologically experimental environment.”
Less than 20 Cronulla players received two to three injections and then a variety of creams and tablets over four months, while more than 40 Essendon players received more than 40 injections over a 40-week period in consultation with the coaching and support staff.
The Cronulla program began in 2011 and was abandoned by May, while Essendon’s began in 2011 and finished at the end of the following season.
Cronulla players are yet to receive show-cause letters because, presumably, ASADA began its investigation into Essendon first and is restricted by limited resources and government bureaucracy.
NRL players also shift clubs with greater frequency than AFL players and this, together with the Cronulla program beginning a year earlier and ASADA focused on Essendon, means that only five Sharks players could eventually be served with infraction notices, compared with more than 20 at the Bombers.
In other words, any six-month to two-year sanctions at Cronulla will have less effect than basically wiping out an AFL club for a season, and there are significant implications for the code’s $1.25 billion TV deal.
However, the NRL’s Smith refuses to allow time to favour the Sharks. He does not wish to interfere with ASADA’s process but is likely to ask the anti-doping body to move in the next month on the evidence it has against the Sharks.
Keogh supports him, saying, “We want it resolved as soon as possible. It is hurting us with sponsors. It’s cost us $4 million and I am concerned that the only people making money out of this are the lawyers.”
Essendon, on the other hand, are one of the AFL’s wealthiest clubs, enjoying private sponsorships and government grants.
They had no problem paying a $2 million fine - to be paid over three years - imposed by the AFL for lack of corporate governance of the supplement regime, yet serious questions should be asked whether the AFL should have fined itself for lack of duty of care.
It has emerged that the AFL, suspicious of Essendon’s use of prohibited substances, secretly sent blood samples of Bombers players to Cologne for testing early in 2012 but no positives emerged.
Fairfax Media understands Dank knew of this and, having waited a couple of months and heard nothing, may have taken this as a green light to continue the program, even increasing dosage.
In other words, the AFL allowed the program to continue and may have known more about it than the Essendon board.
This also suggests a mockery of the claim Essendon self-reported its drug culture in February last year, independent of any influence from the AFL.
When I posed the question whether the AFL’s then boss, Andrew Demetriou, and his deputy and successor, Gillon McLachlan, tipped off Essendon following an ACC briefing in Canberra days before, the response was a swift denial and threat of legal action.
Five months later, News Ltd papers raised the same issue.
When I revealed ASADA’s secret deal to AFL players, which could have had them escape sanction while Cronulla players would receive six-month bans, Demetriou went on Melbourne radio to brand the story preposterous and ridiculous.
A year later, News Ltd papers wrote the same story.
The AFL’s obsession with managing potentially embarrassing problems will be an issue in Essendon’s Federal Court case on August 11.
ASADA’s powers are wide and even if it does lose the case, it claims to have sufficient information, independent of the joint investigation, to reissue show-cause letters to past and present Essendon players.
The AFL, historically, has taken a lofty view of itself compared with the NRL.
Keogh reveals he has attempted to speak to McLachlan about the two code’s common supplements problem but describes the AFL boss as being “dismissive” of the NRL club.
Keogh suggests the AFL has already lost ground, saying, “They have paid for trying to manufacture an outcome.”
They may also pay with money.
While the AFL has received $3 billion from government and corporate support this past decade, including $2 billion for stadiums, it is expected funds will start flowing to rugby league, which has had limited access to the public purse.
