Mix of penalties likely for any Bombers found guilty by the tribunalRoy Masters
The Age
March 10, 2015The 34 past and present Essendon players charged with doping offences may receive different penalties, owing to different evidence presented to the AFL anti-doping tribunal.
It has been widely assumed that if the tribunal found the players guilty, they would all receive the same sanction.
While all 34 signed a document agreeing to the supplements regime of sports scientist Stephen Dank, including the intent to take thymosin, some claimed to have missed regular injections.
Sources close to the inquiry claim some players presented evidence suggesting the Dank program was erratic and chaotic.
Players claimed that when Dank approached them with, "You're due for another needle, son," they sought to avoid an injection, declaring to have had one the previous day.
Should this evidence be accepted, it could result in different sanctions for the 34 players, who have already split into three groups, with half still at Essendon, others at different AFL clubs and some in the VFL or coaching.
Dank rejects any suggestion his program was shambolic.
"There may have been rare occasions when a player reminded me he had an injection the previous day, but invariably I went back to my spreadsheet and checked," he said.
"On those rare occasions I was right.
"My book-keeping was very stringent.
"To say the program was shambolic and the injection regime irregular and haphazard is ridiculous."
Dank has always maintained that the supplement injected was not the banned Thymosin beta 4.
He was served with an infraction notice but refused to cooperate with ASADA and the AFL tribunal, meaning his spreadsheet could not be tendered to verify his claims, or those of the players.
Dank repeated what he recently said on Triple R radio – that Essendon officials were fully aware of his program.
"There was nothing that we did that no one had any issues with and we certainly didn't do anything that wasn't discussed well throughout the club infrastructure," he repeated.
ASADA spent six days on their opening submissions tendering evidence, including material indicating the players had in excess of 1000 injections.
In the absence of a positive test to Thymosin beta 4, the tribunal must consider other evidence. Whether ASADA's counsel demonstrated to the satisfaction of the tribunal that each individual player had a specific injection of a banned substance on each nominated day is open to question.
This may be relevant to the claims of some players that they missed injections.
Nevertheless, a lower standard of proof than applies in the criminal jurisdiction is required for ASADA to establish its case.
Whereas two of the three members of the AFL tribunal are former county court judges accustomed to looking at evidence through the lens of "beyond reasonable doubt", they merely have to reach a "comfortable satisfaction" to find in favour of ASADA.
The tribunal is expected to hand down its judgments at the end of March, or early April.
The tribunal will be required to write a separate judgment for each player, reflecting the different evidence presented.
It is expected the findings will be "appeal proof" to prevent this wrenching saga continuing, via the AFL Appeals board, or the Court of Arbitration in Sport.
WADA and ASADA can appeal both the verdict and the sanctions.
Insofar as the NRL's Cronulla players accepted an ASADA ban of a month of games in exchange for a guilty plea to no more than three injections each, it could be assumed ASADA would challenge any equivalent penalty by the AFL.
Perhaps the most significant comment comes from the man at the centre of the saga, the enigmatic Dank.
Asked for his final word on the players' evidence of an irregular injection regime, he offered an answer which is telling.
"Can you be a little bit pregnant?" he replied.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/mix-of-penalties-likely-for-any-bombers-found-guilty-by-the-tribunal-20150309-13z3rk.html
