There seems to be any amount of people who really don't know what they are talking about here
ASADA are playing a three card trick here, first of all they tried to get Essendon for using AOD9604, which is what Essendon said they were using, Asada themselves said in the first instance it wasn't a banned substance, but then they changed their mind, it isn't a performance enhancing drug anyway, never has been, and I might add that it was tested on 300 people in the Metabolic fat pill trial, with no harmful effects.
Asada realised that it couldn't win an argument based on AOD9604, so they dropped that and then pulled another card, it is a total phurphy, for which they still don't have any definitive proof, aside from a document from Stephen Danks which named a substance called Thymosin, of which there are two types, one banned the other not,it didn't say which one it was, there is not one shred of evidence that proves Essendon took any illegal substances, only this vague reference to Thymosin, what Asada is trying to do is a plea bargain, something that in some circumstances makes totally innocent people take the plea simply because it may lead to a shorter sentence even though they are innocent, it could perhaps persuade a player to say that they had taken Thymonin Beta 4 but without any evidence whatsoever just to limit a penalty to six months rather than four years, and then sue the Essendon football club for their lost income, what Asada have done is wrong, simply because there is no factual evidence.
Essendon however did place themselves in a bad position where they placed themselves in danger of such accusations though , that was a totally stupid thing to do , but they have paid dearly for that already with the loss of points last year, they stopped James Hird coaching for a year, and had to pay the AFL one million dollars, that was supposedly for placing the AFL and the game in a bad light, by using AOD9604 which is only a drug that aids in muscle, bone and ligament repair, there will be other clubs in the future that will fall foul of Asada, the AFL has left no wriggle room for that in my opinion, what happens next time if a club is caught red handed using a drug that has been proven to be a performance enhancing drug, will that club get a ten year ban from playing?
I say to Asada, if you have any convincing proof whatsoever then show it!
