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Sports

Nothing Could Save Essendon From the Sports Agency That Can't Lose

The World Anti Doping Agency wouldn't have risked their reputation if there was a chance Essendon was clean.

Disgraced former Essendon captain James Hird resigning in August last year. Image via

Essendon was screwed from the start. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) put Lance Armstrong in crosshairs at the peak of his career, and ran him to the ground over a decade. To them, taking a team of Australian sportsmen playing a code of football not played professionally anywhere else in the world was never going to be a challenge. Because if it were, WADA wouldn't have risked their reputation.

Almost three years ago it was discovered the Essendon Football Club was supplying players with drugs to boost muscle regeneration and recovery. The drugs—which were a peptide called Thymosin Beta 4—were at best borderline legal, yet the players involved were found not guilty of breaching the Australian Football League's own anti-doping code. The prosecution brought by the Australian Sports Anti Doping Agency (ASADA) had failed and this was supposed to be the end. But then in May last year, ASADA's big brother, the World Anti Doping Agency announced they would appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). At that point, management for both Essendon and the AFL must have sensed trouble.

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This morning the CAS announced 34 players had been found in violation of anti-doping rules, 12 of which were supposed to play in the 2016 season. Those 12 will no longer play and there has been anger and disbelief from fans and media commentators alike.

Disgraced former coach, James Hird expressed his shock in a brief written statement, saying "this is a miscarriage of justice for 34 young men." Former players have taken to social media to outline their sympathy for the players who were only doing what they were told to do and shouldn't be left to wear the burden. The CEO of the AFL Players Association, Paul Marsh called a press conference to express his organisation's anger and defend the players. "They deserve our sympathy, not our scorn."

A careful read of the Court's ruling suggests Essendon's legal team knew they were clutching at straws from the start.

Essendon, a once-powerhouse club will now contend with losing 12 of its current and 22 former players for what amounts to 12 months (after provisional suspensions already served are taken into account). This is a disaster for the club, but on a legal basis it's not really surprising. A careful read of the Court's ruling suggests Essendon's legal team knew they were clutching at straws from the start. One particular passage records some of the increasingly bizarre arguments put forward, including one section in which the legal team attempted to compare the case to, cryptically, jigsaws and Danish arthouse films. Unsurprisingly CAS ruled that "metaphor is ultimately no substitute, in the Panel's view, for evaluating all relevant and credible items of evidence."

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The big difference between the ruling for Essendon's players by the AFL tribunal in March 2015 and the reversal on appeal to the CAS is summed up in a four word phrase that is quoted throughout the ruling: proof of comfortable satisfaction. In appealing the AFL tribunal ruling, WADA only had to prove a reasonable person would be comfortably satisfied that these 34 players had taken a banned substance. And they were comfortably satisfied.

Thomas Bellchambers' teammates can all hide behind each other, while World Anti-doping Agency Vs Thomas Bellchambers et al. will live forever.

There are 34 past and present players who have been suspended from professional sport until, in most cases, November. They'll be doing this tough, but there is one player who you should really spare a thought for. That is fringe ruckman, Thomas Bellchambers. By simply having a surname that begins with a letter early in the alphabet the case will bare his name forever. That's because when there are a group of defendants in a case, they're considered et al or et alia meaning "and others" in Latin. Generally, in a legal ruling, this group are named alphabetically, with the first name used and the rest consigned to the category of "others." Therefore Bellchambers' teammates can all hide behind each other, while World Anti-doping Agency Vs Thomas Bellchambers et al. will live forever.

If it wasn't already hard enough, the AFL and its players must now jointly contribute 30,000 Swiss Francs (at current measure, AU$42,814.05) to WADA for its legal costs. I mean, come on, Swiss Francs?

The current and former players of the Essendon Football Club who are now suspended from their chosen sport for the rest of 2016 have no recourse to appeal. This case is over and these bans will be served. It is devastating to the AFL and Essendon, both from a perspective of reputation and for the credibility of the 2016 playing season. It is also going to be very interesting to see what will come next—we could find the fallout played out in the courts with legal action taken against the club or the league for years to come.

Yet from WADA's perspective, this is just another day at the office. Their consistent hard line approach to any sort of breach of their drug code will continue and more high profile athletes will be caught and punished around the world. The Essendon 34 aren't the first and they won't be the last. They're just the latest to be taken down by the World Anti Doping Agency.

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