Last Tuesday night the AFL handed the Essendon Football Club the most draconian penalties to any one club ever in VFL/AFL history for being guilty of unbecoming conduct and bringing the game into disrepute.

The Essendon Football Club will not play in the 2013 finals. The Bombers, who are seventh in the AFL premiership table, will officially finish in ninth position for the season.

Essendon Coach James Hird will be suspended for 12 months over the club’s controversial supplements program. The AFL has also fined the Bombers $2 million and stripped the club of its first two draft picks for the 2013 draft, and its second-round draft pick in 2014.

Essendon football manager Danny Corcoran received a six-month-ban with two months suspended, while assistant coach Mark Thompson was fined $30,000. Doctor Bruce Reid is to front the AFL Commission on Thursday to contest the charge of bringing the game into disrepute.

AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said Hird’s suspension would be backdated to August 25 and he would not be able to work at any AFL club during the next 12 months. As part of the suspension deal he cannot be paid by the Essendon Football Club either. However, the Bombers Chairman Paul Little announced immediately that the club would welcome Hird back as the club’s senior coach when his suspension is served.

The AFL Commission stated that Essendon acknowledged the ‘experimental and inappropriate’ supplements program and admitted to failing in its duty of care, health, welfare and safety towards its players in delivering the supplements program. Essendon also admitted that the club was unaware of whether the club administered players with substances prohibited by the AFL anti-doping code, ASADA and the World Anti-Doping Code.

In the wake of sanctions being handed down, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou also added that the person at the centre of the controversy, Stephen Dank, needs to appear before the AFL Commission and come clean on his and others’ role in the whole performance enhancing drugs issue. Under AFL rules and regulations, people who are employed at football clubs and who are no longer employed at football clubs can be dealt with by the AFL Commission.

If Stephen Dank wants to present himself before the AFL or ASADA, he is more than welcome because he has a lot to answer for, said Demetriou. The AFL boss said ASADA should absolutely utilise the new legislative powers granted to them on August 1 in any further investigation of the supplements matter.
Demetriou then emphasised that the penalties handed down presently related only to governance, unbecoming conduct and disrepute issues and that the door remains open for Essendon players to be charged in the future as the ASADA investigation continues into the club’s 2012 supplements program.

Apart from the many disappointed Essendon members and supporters in the wake of the punishment, what repercussions do the fines and sanctions harbour for the future of the Bombers?

First, many people will question, why did the AFL not strip them of all their points to finish last after dumping them from the finals? Three issues come in mind when analysing this move in that by placing Essendon last they can apply to the AFL to receive a priority pick before the draft and that would defeat the purpose of the draft exclusion penalty. The second reason is that many astute punters who jumped on in the beginning of the drugs saga in February and bet big money on Essendon finishing last would have cleaned up unfairly; most betting agencies are refunding ‘finals’ and ‘ladder position’ stake money on Essendon bets. Thirdly, allowing Essendon to keep some points (in ninth position) allows the players to participate in the Brownlow medal count – coming last (exclusion of results and points) would have excluded Essendon players from Brownlow votes.

Essendon was fined $2 million, which in reality, over the next three years it’s not only the AFL’s fine that will hurt, it is also the loss in revenue from potential sponsors and decline in memberships which may total at least over $5 million and there is the current legal bill in this dispute which could end up costing them close to another $2 million. It will definitely hurt the Bombers cash flow required for their operations and their new training centre being constructed at Essendon Airport. Financially, the Bombers will have to rely on their rich benefactors and supporters for assistance, just to keep their heads above water for the next five years.

Although the AFL stripped Essendon of its draft picks it did however provide them with the opportunity to trade into the draft picks at any point in time. Realistically, Essendon can trade some of its players to another side for any draft picks but the only limiting factor with this is no other team will trade with Essendon as long as ASADA has a case file open on the supplements issue. No traded player from the Essendon Football Club will be safe from an ASADA infraction notice, until ASADA concludes otherwise; no AFL team wants to gain a player just to lose him down the line for a potential two years for taking illegal substances.

Finally, the personalities suspended and fined in the sanctions – the biggest loser is the Bombers coach James Hird who was suspended for 12 months without pay, which means that he cannot claim his $1 million salary for next year and that is a huge penalty also considering his enormous legal bills of late. Danny Corcoran, football manager, suspended for six months but the repercussions are that he may be replaced, while coaching director Mark Thompson, who was fined just $30,000, may be the real winner as he is tipped to coach Essendon until Hird returns to the club late next year.
The enormity of the situation means the Essendon Football Club will take five to eight years to fully recover from the fall out and even longer if in future, ASADA issues infraction notices to players – that would be devastating.

If footy supporters think the performance enhancing drug issue is over there is more coming. Informed sources in the AFL have indicated that the Melbourne football club is currently being investigated by ASADA on illegal supplement issues after text messages between Stephen Dank and the club’s doctor Dan Bates were revealed earlier this year. More of this story and another player investigation will be breaking in the next few weeks.