If Essendon’s board had any fortidude right now, they should sever ties with James Hird before the club becomes another victim of collateral damage to one man’s obsession
The Essendon Football Club will not appear before next Monday’s scheduled AFL Commission hearing, after the AFL granted them more time to prepare their cases. The Commission has the power to hand out suspensions and fines and either deregister or strip the Bombers of premiership points and draft picks should the charges be sustained.
Embattled Bombers coach James Hird’s legal team had set a deadline of last Monday for the AFL to not go ahead with the August 26 hearing or face legal action. Predictably, the AFL is always reluctant to enter into any court battle as it poses a danger in that their rules and regulations, when challenged in court, may not stand up to scrutiny, especially with their player movement (draft) and salary cap limits. Such restrictions in most international sports are classed as being a ‘restraint of trade’.
The extension of time by the AFL Commission means a hearing may not be possible until after the finals series, which may allow Essendon to play finals football, provided the AFL Commission deems so. Consequentially, the deferral may create a dangerous precedent in opening a Pandora’s box of litigation against the AFL by football teams for any number of reasons, from challenging the laws of the game to overturning AFL Commission and tribunal decisions.
In the meantime last Wednesday, the AFL released the charges statement detailing the grounds on which it has charged Essendon with bringing the game into disrepute, in that Essendon Football Club:
• engaged in practices that exposed players to significant risks to their health and safety as well as the risk of using substances that were prohibited by the AFL Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Code.
• disregarded standard practices involving the human resources department when employing high performance manager Dean Robinson and sports scientist Stephen Dank, both have whom have since left the club.
• failed to devise or implement any adequate system or process to ensure that all substances provided to and used by players were safe and were compliant with the AFL Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Code.
• failed to have proper regard to player health and safety, including failing to ensure that all substances had no potentially negative effects on players.
• failed to identify and record the source from which all substances used by players were obtained.
• failed to adequately monitor and record the use of substances.
• failed to audit or monitor all substances held on the premises of the club.
• failed to meaningfully inform players of the substances the subject of the program and obtain their informed consent to the administration of the substances.
• failed to take any appropriate and adequate action when it became aware of facts that strongly suggested that unsatisfactory and potentially risky practices were occurring in relation to the administration of supplements.
• created or permitted a culture at the club that legitimised and encouraged the frequent, uninformed and unregulated use of the injection of supplements.
• failed to adequately protect the health, welfare and safety of the players.
In fact there are 34 pages of charges against the Bombers detailing the timeline of events during the club’s controversial supplements regime.
With all that has unfolded this week, I tend to agree with former Victorian Premier and Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett, who last week said that Essendon should be prevented from playing in the AFL next season if the fall-out from the supplements saga is not resolved by the end of November. Kennett says the AFL cannot afford to let the issue drag on indefinitely, because the Bombers failed their players and the AFL must put the reputation of the code first, even if it means playing with just 17 teams next year.
Up until this week, the AFL’s reluctance to speed up proceedings has frustrated Aussie Rules supporters and the general public. There are elements within AFL House and local media which idolise James Hird and the Essendon Football Club and are working surreptitiously to get the club and coach ‘off the hook’, no matter what the accused are alleged to have done.
Of all his recent self-centred and selfish actions, James Hird has declared war on the AFL through the courts – a move which may terminate his football career and severely damage the Essendon Football Club. If Essendon’s board had any fortitude right now, they should sever ties with James Hird before the club becomes another victim of collateral damage to one man’s obsession.
At the invitation of AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, all the club presidents met for talks on the crisis last Thursday, resulting in 17 clubs, with the exception of Essendon, agreeing that the matter should be handled by the AFL Commission and not an independent arbitrary body. It was a clear message to Essendon that all of the other clubs were backing the AFL and Essendon was alone in its resistance.
This raises many questions: Is the AFL now going to strip Essendon of the premiership points before the finals? And what if Essendon decides to take the AFL to court to obtain an injunction against the finals games? In light of the recent concerned parents of players’ voices, are they or current players going to sue the club for lack of due diligence in breaching Occupational Health and Safety standards? Will Essendon players leave the club for the next draft?
Before Hird’s recent legal action and the AFL club presidents’ meeting, the AFL didn’t have the mettle to go into Essendon boots-and-all, and would rather have dealt its way to a negotiated equitable solution. Now the AFL has been spurned and ignored, the punishment will be draconian and Essendon’s demise total.
I have expressed all along, Essendon should be suspended or deregistered, especially in light of the current charges and emerging details of Dr Reid’s damning correspondence, parents of players’ concerns, the Mexican mystery drug hyperbaric chamber supplement injection scheme and the alleged scheduled 25,000 hits of AOD9604, Thymosin, Colostrum and Tribulus from the systematic supplement regime.
It is now time for the world body WADA and ASADA to utilise the hard evidence (starting with self-confessed Bomber captain, Jobe Watson), move in with the AFL and issue infraction notices enforced immediately, banning players from competition before any finals are played. Players and officials snared in the drug scandal dragnet should be charged and severely punished, then after serving their sentence the players may be allowed to come up through the draft, but never to play for the Essendon Football Club again.
In light of Hird’s legal action and the AFL Commission’s mandate from the 17 clubs, the governing body must enforce the message now more than ever, that no club or any one official’s ego and reputation is greater than the AFL. There is no reason that the AFL can negotiate with Essendon any more. To do anything less than severely punish the offending parties would see thousands of disillusioned footy fans deserting the code forever.
