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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."A careful read of the Court's ruling suggests Essendon's legal team knew they were clutching at straws from the start.
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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.Follow Andy on Twitter.Thomas Bellchambers' teammates can all hide behind each other, while World Anti-doping Agency Vs Thomas Bellchambers et al. will live forever.