The AFL, and its just departed head honcho, botched the opportunity to nip the illegal substance usage amongst the players when it allowed the West Coast Eagle players to run rampant, for a number of seasons, ingesting all sort of substances. It gave the green light to any player willing to take their chances. And,of course, players are still allowed three drug misdemeanours before they are brought to account. An opportunity not given to anyone else in our society.
The whole saga has taken far too long, and if it taks any longer, especially if Essendon is successful in its legal challenge, I could be close to departing this earth before the issue is resolved.
The AFL made the whole issue a political one when it appeared with Federal Pollies in February,2013 when, Sports Minister Kate Lundy gave a very loud, tough, warning all sportsmen and women: "If you want to dope and cheat, we will catch you."
However, speaking at a forum on integrity in sport on Tuesday night, in May 2014, in Melbourne, Demetriou now admits 'that the press conference had been "very unfortunate". And:
Former World Anti-Doping Agency president John Fahey also said at the forum 'that the Labor government's public announcement of the ASADA probe into drugs in Australian sport ran contrary to any other investigation he had known in his six years at WADA'. And
"In the normal course of events, ASADA would have conducted the investigation under the power and rules that they operate under and they would have interviewed players and other people involved, they would have done it on a confidential basis," Demetriou said.
"They would have gone through their process and if they thought there was a case to answer they would have laid a charge and it would have been dealt with under the ASADA code.
"(But) it wasn't done that way, it was done via a very public press conference where I, like other chief executives of other major sports, were in Canberra and put before the public and the world was told there was some very large issue – underworld infiltrating sport – and it impugned just about every athlete in this country and that was a very unfortunate way to commence that investigation.
"It damaged lots of very good sports, lots of very good people.
Will the AFL pay a very high price for its incompetence, and its ready willingness to get into bed with the previous grossly incompetent Federal Labor Government. Especially when Demetriou dismissed the LNP's offer of help from the previous Howard lead Federal Government, in the aftermath of the Marion Jones scandal at the Sydney Olympic Games.
