Jobe Watson has broken his silence and is still claiming they're all innocent and are looking at their legal options.
“The decision announced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to uphold WADA’s appeal is devastating,” Jobe Watson said.
“We are struggling to come to terms with this decision, and feel it does not support the players’ firm belief that we are innocent.
“Our legal team is conducting a thorough review of the decision and will explore any avenues available to us.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/jobe-watson-says-essendon-players-are-devastated-by-ban/news-story/b570fc4864885773efcdaf6d998f3007
How much higher do you want to go?
The Hague?
Intergalactic tribunal of drugs in sport?
Dons seek appeal loophole Jake Niall
The Age
January 14, 2016 Bitterly disappointed by season-long suspensions, current and former Essendon players have their lawyers exploring avenues for legal action that might overturn the verdict.
While it is far from certain that a legal challenge will be mounted against a Court of Arbitration for Sport verdict, the legal teams that acted for the 34 players are seriously investigating those options given the disastrous result and what some feel were errors in the judgment.
The avenues that are being investigated include the Swiss Federal Court, the Supreme Courts of the Victoria and NSW and the Federal Court of Australia.Cases from the CAS have an automatic right of appeal to the Swiss Federal Court on a point of law. There is a view from within the players' legal camp that the case erred in its judgment on a number of grounds, including the devasting finding that the players were significantly at fault and could not receive a discount.
Tony Hargraves, the solicitor who handled the 32 players (not Bulldog pair Stewart Crameri and Brent Prismall) is canvassing the legal avenues and has already identified areas in which he believes the CAS judgment was flawed.
The view of Hargraves and others in the players' defence was that the CAS set the bar for comfortable satisfaction too low.
This was in contrast to the AFL anti-doping tribunal, which WADA savaged for setting the standard of proof too high.
One point Hargraves has noted is that the players were treated by the CAS as a collective and the differences in circumstances and individual evidence were not taken into account in either the verdict or the sentence.
Another objection and even a point that could be challenged was that the CAS did not take into account the delay caused by Essendon's Federal Court action when setting out the sentences. As the players' lawyers pointed out, the players were not part of the action taken by Essendon and James Hird against ASADA in the Court.
The players' lawyers also noted that there was dissent among the three-man panel, with one judge not comfortably satisfied that some players – the number is not specified but has to be at least two – took thymosin beta-4, although the dissenting panellist was satisfied that players did take TB4.
Legal sources with a knowledge of the case speculated that the dissent would likely have been based on the timing of injections in 2012.
www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/essendon-cas-verdict-dons-seek-appeal-loophole-20160113-gm5c7q.html
