Why Stephen Dank is still the most important player in ASADA scandal
Date
September 2, 2014 - 10:00PM
Roy Masters
Rugby League Columnist
The most reviled man in football's supplements saga has suddenly become the most significant.
Stephen Dank has been variously portrayed as a rogue scientist using players as guinea pigs in a bizarre experiment; an innovative sports scientist treating soft tissue injuries of footballers who are victims of a crowded sports calendar; and a prince of peptides, exploiting the inevitable time gap between a new product coming on the market and WADA identifying it.
To journalists generally, he gives the impression that he reads the morning's sports pages to see what we left out.
"See you in court," is his mantra, either in relation to defamation actions, or when asked to respond to the bans given Cronulla players for use of prohibited substances.
Dank has told Fairfax's Danny Weidler that it is his duty to support the Cronulla players in court where, presumably, he believes he will provide evidence that overturns the three game bans they will have already served.
But what will he do regarding Essendon and the 34 show cause notices ASADA has already handed the AFL club's past and present players?
Essendon has made it clear they will fight ASDADA against an offer, made before their recent Federal Court action and the Cronulla penalties, of a six-month sanction for their players.
Therefore, given the strong possibility of prolonged court action, irrespective of the outcome of Essendon's current case against the AFL and ASADA, the only way of fast forwarding a matter the rest of the world wants quickly resolved is if Dank comes forward and tells the truth about the peptides he administered in both codes.
When Dank was interviewed by the Australian Crime Commission, he made certain admissions.
Because this evidence was provided under powers of coercion - the threat of a jail term if he lied - the material can't be used in a court against Dank.
ASADA may well have this ACC information but can't use it, unless they source it independently themselves.
Essendon's lawyers have long relied on the absence of evidence of a direct link between player X being injected with prohibited substance Y by person Z.
In December, when I first met Dank, I asked him what he would do if Cronulla players were banned, partly on evidence provided by their own club, while AFL players escaped sanction, possibly on a technicality.
He told me what he later told Weidler: he would stand up for the Cronulla players.
On Sunday, I texted Dank asking for an on the record response whether this was still his stance. He replied, "Very true."
But Dank has made it clear he will not talk to ASADA and their powers to compel him to do so came after his involvement with Cronulla and Essendon.
If it is the Federal Court where Dank tells his story, his detractors will question the testimony of a man who allegedly doped and duped.
Yet Dank's reputation hasn't always been so.
Leigh Matthews, unequalled in the history of the AFL in terms of honours won as a player and coach, told Fairfax Radio twice last year that at the end of his (Matthews') time in Brisbane (2008), everyone wanted Dank's intellectual property.
He said Dank has gone from being "a guru to a witch doctor".
This reinforces the view expressed by Dank that anyone who believes the supplements saga began on the eve of the February 2013 "darkest day in Australian sport" is a fool.
The NRL have taken action against Dank, effectively a life ban under which they will refuse to register him as an accredited official should any club seek to hire him.
Dank knows that no club is about to employ him, undermining any Federal Court action he can take against the NRL for deprivation of income.
Nor does it mean he can't attend games. He stayed in Sydney last weekend to watch three NRL games.
But NRL chief executive Dave Smith has come out with a strong message, saying, "On the evidence of what I have seen, there is no place in this sport ever for Stephen Dank."
Obviously Smith is not concerned about inflaming Dank, antagonising him into making revelations about widespread supplement use at other NRL clubs.
The AFL, of late, has been silent on Dank. A spokesman said via text, "We are waiting for the judge's decision in the Federal Court before doing anything in any area on this matter, including Dank."
A favourite Dank cliché is "at the end of the day". It's a date he can deliver.
