Footy's darkest day looms as Essendon awaits AFL sanctions over supplements saga Jon Ralph
From: Herald Sun
August 27, 2013 6:11PMTHE blackest day in Australian sport has morphed into footy's darkest day.
Just because we have predicted this moment for so long does not make it any less historic.
A club unceremoniously turfed from the finals despite 14 wins for the season and a star-studded list.
Their arch rivals Carlton poised for their own tilt at history if they beat Port Adelaide in the last game at AAMI Stadium, becoming the first team to play finals from ninth.
All of it is bizarre and sad and yet still quite extraordinary.
The AFL will tonight announce the exact wording of Essendon's banishment from the finals, but there is no doubt it is a banishment.
It will also come as a massive relief to City Hall to be able to make this decision tonight.
Eyebrows were already raised at their willingness to negotiate with Essendon given the 34-page charge sheet.
Why didn't they just smash them with the baseball bat that has been used with regular monotony in the past year at AFL House?
Imagine if they had spent two full days negotiating with Essendon's flotilla of lawyers yet still couldn't get the deal done?
Now will come questions about what happens to James Hird and co, and the answers will soon done.
So will the penalties -- how many draft picks, how big is the fine -- with the AFL set to announce those at a 7pm press conference tonight.
It is expected Essendon will concede $2 million fine and have their two first-round picks stripped this year, with potentially more lost in 2014.
But the crucial element for the AFL - pushing Essendon out of the finals before they actually arrived - at least has been executed by the league.
Imagine the farce if Essendon had been able to storm to the most unlikely of premierships, only to have it stripped from them by the AFL in October.
It was an unacceptable scenario from the AFL's point of view.
Imagine James Hird standing atop the premiership dais shouting, "Andrew Demetriou, you were wrong''.
It couldn't happen.
We haven't yet got the elegant solution suggested in recent weeks, where Hird would accept hierarchical responsibility but not concede he was a drug cheat.
But we at least have a resolution to the key penalty proposed months ago.
http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/footys-darkest-day-looms-as-essendon-awaits-afl-sanctions-over-supplements-saga/story-fndv8gad-1226705221616