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This editorial in The Age sums it pretty much up. AFL are a joke and should be ashamed of themselves the way they have handled the whole saga. As for Essendon, well they are bigger joke of a club.
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Any day now vast numbers of Australians will begin an annual ritual. Already the back pages of daily newspapers have begun a familiar transformation. Progressively, sports played with round balls are being pushed inside – footy season is nearly upon us and it is cause for celebration.
Or is it? For the third consecutive year, the start of an AFL season is being tainted by the red and black stain of the Essendon Football Club. Instead of reaching a conclusion, or at least being contained, the seemingly never-ending supplements saga has spread into the 2015 NAB Challenge preseason competition and is affecting the preparations of at least two other clubs.
In one of the few positive moves in this entire sorry affair, the 25 players who remain from Essendon's 2012 list will not take part in the competition for at least its first two games, to protect the anonymity of the 17 players provisionally suspended and charged with taking the banned drug thymosin beta-4. But this means the club will field a substantially weakened side for at least these two matches, against St Kilda and Greater Western Sydney. The point of preseason games is to allow clubs to assess players in a genuine match-day environment, but by fielding a team largely made up of second-tier players, it appears unlikely that Essendon will meet its competitive obligations.
The AFL and Essendon have inflicted even more damage to their already battered reputations; it is disgraceful that the preseason competition begins next week while one of its constituent members is yet to secure a functioning player list. It is difficult to imagine another elite sporting code, anywhere in the world, allowing itself to be dragged through such a long and sordid scandal. The AFL has pretensions of being Australia's premier sporting code, but one of its clubs is making a mockery of this.
It is worth remembering that in 2013, when the story emerged, Essendon attempted to be proactive by commissioning former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski to review its management processes. As The Age reported at the time, he found a club that was poorly run and in need of repair. "The Essendon Football Club has been damaged, but not broken," he concluded; damaged enough to warrant such comments as "broke down, failed", "poor internal processes" and "failures in structure and accountability".
The Switkowski report was a good start, but the club then reversed direction, adopted the role of victim rather than perpetrator, fled to the bunker and bolted the doors. As such, it can be argued that Essendon has not accepted its fundamental culpability in failing to consider the consequences of its supplements program.
Illegal doping is a scourge across practically all professional sports. It damages the health of athletes who partake and contaminates the spirit of fans who admire them, which in turn tarnishes the reputation of the overarching code. We recognise that many factors are present that have prevented a timely conclusion to the Essendon Football Club matter – those of legal and administrative procedure are key. And yet, when it became apparent late last year that the AFL's anti-doping tribunal hearing into those 17 players would drag on into this year, it was incumbent on Essendon, and indeed the AFL, to prepare contingencies for the preseason competition.
That we are seeing a belated and confusing scramble for players indicates a self-absorption on the part of Essendon, and a level of trust on the part of the AFL that is questionable.
Link
Any day now vast numbers of Australians will begin an annual ritual. Already the back pages of daily newspapers have begun a familiar transformation. Progressively, sports played with round balls are being pushed inside – footy season is nearly upon us and it is cause for celebration.
Or is it? For the third consecutive year, the start of an AFL season is being tainted by the red and black stain of the Essendon Football Club. Instead of reaching a conclusion, or at least being contained, the seemingly never-ending supplements saga has spread into the 2015 NAB Challenge preseason competition and is affecting the preparations of at least two other clubs.
In one of the few positive moves in this entire sorry affair, the 25 players who remain from Essendon's 2012 list will not take part in the competition for at least its first two games, to protect the anonymity of the 17 players provisionally suspended and charged with taking the banned drug thymosin beta-4. But this means the club will field a substantially weakened side for at least these two matches, against St Kilda and Greater Western Sydney. The point of preseason games is to allow clubs to assess players in a genuine match-day environment, but by fielding a team largely made up of second-tier players, it appears unlikely that Essendon will meet its competitive obligations.
The AFL and Essendon have inflicted even more damage to their already battered reputations; it is disgraceful that the preseason competition begins next week while one of its constituent members is yet to secure a functioning player list. It is difficult to imagine another elite sporting code, anywhere in the world, allowing itself to be dragged through such a long and sordid scandal. The AFL has pretensions of being Australia's premier sporting code, but one of its clubs is making a mockery of this.
It is worth remembering that in 2013, when the story emerged, Essendon attempted to be proactive by commissioning former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski to review its management processes. As The Age reported at the time, he found a club that was poorly run and in need of repair. "The Essendon Football Club has been damaged, but not broken," he concluded; damaged enough to warrant such comments as "broke down, failed", "poor internal processes" and "failures in structure and accountability".
The Switkowski report was a good start, but the club then reversed direction, adopted the role of victim rather than perpetrator, fled to the bunker and bolted the doors. As such, it can be argued that Essendon has not accepted its fundamental culpability in failing to consider the consequences of its supplements program.
Illegal doping is a scourge across practically all professional sports. It damages the health of athletes who partake and contaminates the spirit of fans who admire them, which in turn tarnishes the reputation of the overarching code. We recognise that many factors are present that have prevented a timely conclusion to the Essendon Football Club matter – those of legal and administrative procedure are key. And yet, when it became apparent late last year that the AFL's anti-doping tribunal hearing into those 17 players would drag on into this year, it was incumbent on Essendon, and indeed the AFL, to prepare contingencies for the preseason competition.
That we are seeing a belated and confusing scramble for players indicates a self-absorption on the part of Essendon, and a level of trust on the part of the AFL that is questionable.
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