Is there anyway I can get the rights to the movie ? Its gunnabe a blewty
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My guess is that Warner has been sitting on this and has more to come. Players- apart from Crameri and perhaps Lovett Murray — can’t speak out directly. Neither could the three amigos go into the detail.
Chip has selectively revealed some information and like Warner, Francis has some good sources. But Warner would have the wider audience and his articles seem to fit the wider Hun agenda of targeting the AFL.
It is less about the behaviour of individuals that brought about this dreadful situation than the system that breeds them and allows them to unaccountably wreak havoc in so many lives.
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Same article now on News.com.au…no paywall, so its “in the wild” now
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And importantly, that the investigation ultimately found NOTHING to build a reasonable case on. If a process had been followed instead of deal making we may have had a different result.
Imagine the AFL (Fitzpatrick Demetriou and Gillon) didnt create the outrage of the “drug den with thousands of injections of multiple unknown substances from Bikies, China and Mexico”. Imagine they let the investigation run and find a cooperative club, coaches and players explain that the sports science department didnt have controlled practices, and that the only possible/probable transgression was by Dank who thought he knew the WADA code better than he did when he used AOD and (possibly) TB4. The players may have copped a violation under strict liability, but the broader public just may have had some shared outrage at the unreasonable nature of the WADA code.
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It’s incredible in the true sense of the word, that because Bomber & Hird so strongly believed they had been scapegoated, it really affected their mental health. Very little public recognition that Corcoran, absent throughout while his wife was dying during the height of the supposed drug fest, was also punished. Contrast this with the three people who should actually have acted, walked (or was that scuttled?) away free of any public humiliation or damage to their working lives.
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They were expendable for the greater good of self interest of a few and then 34 other innocents also got hung out to dry. The club will not recover from this by sweeping it under the rug. How must the affected players feel when Tanner praises the AFL for helping ?
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In addition to what others have said, Vlad shat himself after being briefed at the “blackest day in sport” meeting in Canberra. He shat himself because AFL Premiers HAD been taking all sorts of drugs - from cocaine in WCE’s case through to mysterious injections in Germany (Geelong) to whatever Collingwood did to get them bulked up for the 2010 flag to Hawthorn’s injection regime that was lauded by Sam Lane QC in an Age article. He was also worried because he knew what Robinson and Dank had done at Gold Coast, and he could not risk any problems with their love child.
So Vlad needed to divert attention from these clubs because he did not want any aspersions cast on the AFL flags or jeopardise GCS.
So he needed a scapegoat. A club who had not won any flags or indeed finals for a long time.
A club that was big enough to survive a scandal. A club that had always been supine and compliant to any demands the VFL/AFL had ever imposed on it.
Only one club ticks all those boxes. The rest is history.
Or at least, a Sorry Saga.
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Events of last 7 days:
“You couldn’t be totally certain (the substances were performance
enhancing)” - Mike Fitzpatrick, Former AFL Chairman, Open Mike
“The AFL needs to stand up and take responsibility, They need to say sorry
and they need to tell the players what they know. How can you honestly let
all this happen knowing the AFL have deliberately created this situation and
allowed players to be suspended as drug cheats?” - Leaked Mark
Thompson email to disgraced Essendon Chairman David Evans, sent 2017,
published in Herald Sun today.
“For someone to be guilty of something when they’re innocent, it’s just really
hard to take” - Stewart Crameri breaking down on FoxFooty
“James Hird & AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan have discreet meeting at hidden
South Yarra Cafe” - Nine News.
“James Hird’s house broken into overnight, computers and cars stolen, car
retrieved’” - FoxFooty
“Bush did 911” - Jet Fuel can’t melt steel beams.
hmmmm… scratches tin-foil hat
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You forgot the bizarre Brayshaw comment on Hird re: Evans.
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I’m only early in to it, but Vanessa McDermott writes about this sort of situation in The War on Drugs in Sport; Moral Panics and Organisational Legitimacy
While she doesn’t use the Essendon Saga as an example, one of the arguments is that sport governing bodies will turn anti-doping investigations in to a moral panic, with a ‘folk-devil’ to focus their frenzy on (Hird, Essendon, Dank, Robinson etc).
This allows the governing body to prove their legitimacy by pursuing and punishing that target, which helps show that they’ve got a grip on things (or alternatively need more power via legislation, change of internal procedures, etc).
So I think on top of what A_T said, you can add in the illicit drugs issue that was bubbling around in the pre-season leading in to 2013. I think Collingwood were speaking openly about it and perhaps a summit was called?
The AFL believed that they could have a deal with ASADA about us which would see it all resolved rather quickly, with the players not being punished, while still having someone that they could sacrifice to the masses.
It would allow the AFL to prove they’re in control and on top of things, perhaps introduce some new policies to crack down on sports scientists and say it will never happen again, as well as cutting off any need for a debate as to the AFL’s ability to police the illicit drug issue, nor the wider use of injections and supplements within the game outside of the Essendon scenario.
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Now I can understand why Fitzpatrick chose to be interviewed, why Bradshaw acted as Evans mouthpiece. They knew what was coming. And Crameri’s brave interview tipped the balance. Liz Lukin’s spin is not working and if nothing else, their reputations are tarnished. Not much empathy left for Evans. If he had not gone along with the AFL, none of this might have happened.
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A lot of people ask…why keep reading this forum? Why hold on to the saga?
That email is why. There were very real consequences for all concerned, and only now is it becoming apparent just how real.
Bomber is clearly in a real dark place at that point in time. Evans comes across as someone who can destroy the entire case with one move but somehow feels more motivated to wash his hands of all of it.
It’s clear James and Mark are not over it, and never will be. Not without a serious redefinition of the storyline, with the perceived heroes and villains shown in the proper light.
And that’s why I can’t get over it either, even though I really have almost nothing to lose compared to most of you, having been on the opposite side of the globe for the duration and not having to deal firsthand with the neanderthals and nuff nuffs as well as the media saturation. I have to say it is nice to wear an Essendon jumper in public and still more or less be anonymous.
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I’m not over it and neither will 98% of the people on this forum until Vlad, Fitpatrick, Gill, Clothier, Hardcourt, WADA, CAS and ASADA are held to accountr for the hatchett job they performed on Hird, Bomba, Corcoran and Doc Reid (and the 34) !
Exhonerating the innocent is more important than winning footy games at this stage.
Tanner and the AFL sychophants are beneath my contempt
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Tanner’s comments infuriated me more than Brayshaw’s or Fitzpatrick’s.
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Symptomatic of our society at large. I certainly know it living in America these days.
We’ll do what we need to do to cover our own ■■■■■, and we don’t care whose life gets farked by it. Evans is a worm. Two of our all time best clubmen exiled and left to self-destruct by the club they bled for, all so he could stay in his boys club.
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I missed Brayshaws comments re Evans - what did he say?
You might want a Bovril first.
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I’m on my way to the game, my resilience is on full.
I’m admin on Justice for the 34 on Facebook. If you haven’t liked the page already, please do so. We also have the petition there to sign.
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I wonder what Ken Lay- former decent cop and current Board member - thinks of all this cover up and evidence tampering. His experience brings a lot to the Board, let’s hope he can have some influence.
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