Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS

[🏅Dooks]

"Im just shocked to be sitting here. But we cant wait to have our day in court".

[WilliamPowell]

Disgusting that this is a trial about the legality of the investigation, not what they took. Just reading through comments here and on BF and stuff it sounds like the AFL may get cop a whack but the show cause notices will stand. How can Hird honestly expect to stay in the AFL after this? He is throwing just about everyone under the bus as he goes. Grow up and take some responsibility you gimp.

 

Excellent post dwaino 

[Judge Roughneck]

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/sorry-might-be-the-principal-word-for-a-lot-of-people-after-footballs-supplements-saga/story-fni5f0at-1227019788197

Robbos lost the plot. Its all above his head I'm afraid

The players deserve an apology.

For being drug cheats? Oh dear.

[🏅Dooks]

Disgusting that this is a trial about the legality of the investigation, not what they took. Just reading through comments here and on BF and stuff it sounds like the AFL may get cop a whack but the show cause notices will stand. How can Hird honestly expect to stay in the AFL after this? He is throwing just about everyone under the bus as he goes. Grow up and take some responsibility you gimp.

Got to wonder what the players think of Hird now. Let alone the club officials.

id be stunned if he is allowed to another Essendon game as a paying supporter, let alone allowed to coach again

[Judge Roughneck]

Standbyhird#

When he was 10, James Hird's father asked him what he wanted to do with his life. The blond boy looked up at his dad and very clearly stated: "I want to captain Essendon to a premiership, marry a blonde girl and live happily ever after."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/messiah-or-pariah-20130802-2r549.html#ixzz8mw7XzavQ

You did good jimmy, you did good

[The Big Richo]

Why aren't the camera allowed in anymore?

[yellowandback]

Such a poo person is hird.

Spearheads the implementation of peptides and more upon a generation of kids,
goes overseas and comes back trying to lag anyone he can.

What a piece of work~~

This is fantastic to watch, full knowing he's stuffed and is just grasping at straws, all the while killing his perceived public image every time he makes a call.

Said it back on page ..... well who knows but it was a while ago 40 pages perhaps

With friends like James you really don't need enemies

And please give me a break he signed that deed of understanding with the AFL (his agreed punishment) because he felt pressued and under extreme duress....

He must really think we are morons

If only the 2 of you knew how on the money.......well, anyways.

[yellowandback]

Can we change the thread title from "AFL" to  "Anal"?

[mightytiges]

Now Hird's trying to claim Essendon forced him to say everything he previously said and to accept the suspension . What are you James - a 5 year old?! 

Do we need any further proof the guy is a narcissist putting himself above the interests of his players, his club and the game itself! 

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ASADA: James Hird says he took one-year ban 'under duress' over Essendon supplement regime
ABC.net.au
Mon 11 Aug 2014, 7:54pm

Suspended coach James Hird says he accepted his one-year suspension and signed a deed of settlement with the AFL "under great threats, duress and inducement".

The Essendon Football Club and Hird have begun their Federal Court challenge to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) investigation into the club's 2012 supplements program.

The challenge comes 18 months after the anti-doping authority launched its investigation.

The AFL and Essendon came to the settlement in August 2013, which saw the club banned from that year's finals series, fined $2 million and stripped of picks in the 2013 and 2014 drafts.

Hird was suspended for a year, assistant Mark Thompson was fined $30,000 and football manager Danny Corcoran was banned from working with any AFL team for six months.

The AFL acknowledged that individuals at the club and Essendon itself did not set out to implement a supplements program that would see players administered with banned or harmful substances.

Hird also told the court he was told to take full responsibility for the controversial supplements program because it would be good for the club and his reputation.

He said he disagreed with Essendon doing a press conference in February 2013 in which it announced it would hold a joint investigation into the program with ASADA, but was told to toe the line.

When asked by lawyers representing ASADA why he did not voice his disagreement at the press conference he replied it was not how press conferences worked at football clubs.

"I disagreed with what Mr Evans was going to say the morning he said it," Hird said.

"I was asked by the Essendon Football Club not to shirk the issue.

"I was told it would be better for the club if we went along this path."

But Hird said he spoke privately of his concerns to then-CEO David Evans.

He also said he was not invited to a high level meeting between Essendon, ASADA and the AFL, held after the press conference, and was not told what it was about.

Hird also told the court he was told to tell the truth about the program, but not to mention "the tip off" given to Mr Evans by then-AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou.

He said there was no choice from the AFL but to cooperate, and if he remained silent he would be sanctioned by the league.

He said he was told: "if you cooperate, it will go well for the players".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-11/james-hird-told-to-take-responsibility-for-essendon/5663096

[Judge Roughneck]

"Befehl ist Befeh

[Yeahright]

How funny the club tells him to take responsibility for the sake of his own image which he disagreed with but pretty much the moment he started shifting the blame is when his reputation started going downhill fast. Seems the club got it right but Hird thinks he can do no wrong

[one-eyed]

Eighteen months and James Hird still doesn't get it

  Caroline Wilson
    The Age
    August 12, 2014

James Hird, true to the whisperings of his camp for more than 15 months, did not really believe he was responsible for his football department or his players. Nor did Hird believe the club was genuinely self-reporting when it fronted the public in February last year and admitted its nasty and dangerous problem.

In fact the Essendon coach fronted the media  alongside his fellow club chiefs and former colleagues David Evans and Ian Robson only because Gillon McLachlan suggested he should do so “for the look of the club and my reputation”. He finally agreed to sign a deal with the AFL “under duress, threats and inducements”. He was told by Evans, his former close friend, to omit evidence when being interviewed by ASADA and in fact was unwilling to be interviewed by the anti-doping body at all.

So the key question at some point for Hird is just what exactly was he responsible for? What did he truly stand for while he claimed to be acting only in the best interests of his players and at what point during this entire sorry saga did he actually think and act on his own behalf? If his apology behind closed doors to the AFL Commission was insincere then how can his club truly move forward with Hird at the helm?

As the Federal Court and Justice John Middleton continue to deliberate over the legality of the joint investigation carried out into Essendon by ASADA and the AFL it was also suggested in evidence on Monday that the Australian anti-doping body would simply re-issue show-cause notices to 34 Essendon players whether or not the work they have done already was valid. If that is correct the tactic by Essendon will serve to expose the inadequacies of last year’s processes but do nothing to save its players.

It has also served to devalue the reputation of the AFL and its past and present chiefs but there again the AFL remains certain it has broken no laws. The AFL has always disputed it definitively knew that Essendon was the club at the centre of doping allegations after it was briefed by the Australian Crime Commission. Both Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan have always stressed this despite having the strongest of suspicions that the Bombers were the club.

It is understood that both the current boss McLachlan and his predecessor still deny they left the meeting on January 31, 2013 with a definite answer and there is even genuine dispute as to whether the ACC’s director of operations, Paul Jevtovic, actually uttered the words “say no more” after McLachlan asked: “Is it Essendon.” The AFL Commission’s version of events is that the ACC refused to confirm the club involved.

Nonetheless it remains unfortunate that Demetriou chose the words he did when denying last year that he had tipped off David Evans. No one, except perhaps Hird, would have had a problem with an AFL chief giving counsel to a distressed club chairman concerned that his players were in trouble. Demetriou should have admitted he believed the club was Essendon and Evans, if Hird is telling the truth, should never have told the coach to hide anything from ASADA.

Not that the process changes the bottom line in this seemingly never-ending story. And that finally is the question of what the players took, or were given as they worked in this  “pharmaceutically experimental environment’’.

On Tuesday, when Hird takes the stand again and continues to point the finger at an investigation he allowed himself to enter into, the AFL will again be forced to roll with his well-aimed punches.

It has not been a happy few days for the AFL, ASADA and the departed Gillard government. That a government was so concerned about the look of the process – and ASADA so incompetent in its willingness to make deals – should be a matter of concern to a sport-loving nation.

The AFL  will do things differently next time and so they should. But it remains less and less likely that Hird will get the chance to redeem himself.

Hird knows that when he returns to Essendon later this month he will be doing so under the guidance of a board that remains divided as to whether he should be allowed to return or not. Judging by his performance on day one of the Federal Court deliberations he certainly doesn’t deserve that chance.

During his evidence expected to be put forward under examination on Tuesday by his own legal team, perhaps Hird will finally and unreservedly apologise for the damage his regime has done to his club. Then again perhaps not.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/eighteen-months-and-james-hird-still-doesnt-get-it-20140811-102xza.html

[1965]

Whack

 

[Judge Roughneck]

Hird: "at no time have I said something in public that I didn't believe was the truth". Mcnicol visibly excited and asked him to repeat it
10:27am - 12 Aug 14

[Judge Roughneck]

Hird doesn't agree that investigation was initiated by Essendon


Hird agrees with the statement that anyone who loves the game should let ASADA do its job


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