There cannot, in my mind, be a legal way to prevent the players from forming an independent union of some sort, that has no affiliation with the AFL. So I wonder why they do not do this.
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Essendon drugs cancer will never go away and its scars have been laid bare this week, writes Mark Robinson
MARK ROBINSON, Herald Sun
May 26, 2018 9:16am
THE cancer born from the Essendon drugs scandal won’t go away.
It rears its head occasionally and in the past two weeks, ferociously.
On display has been utter despair and disillusionment, bewildering and unrelenting personal attacks and a cry for help from a man who may find himself in jail, but who 12 months ago was so swamped with mental health issues he reached out to an old friend, David Evans.
His name is Mark Thompson and his email to Evans, the former Essendon chairman, which was written in February 2017, was on the front page of the Herald Sun a week ago.
The push back on Thompson by commentator Caroline Wilson was savage, prompting debate about whether she’s still barracking for her narrative which was Thompson, James Hird et al were all evil and that Evans, the AFL and their processes were the good guys in all of this.
The AFL has been accused of bungling and corrupting the initial investigation. The AFL has denied it.
But when Mike Sheahan interviewed former AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick on Fox Footy on May 15, the people still interested in this long-running tragedy were probably surprised at the lack of certainty and conviction from Fitzpatrick.
He said the players “almost certainly took performance enhancing drugs’’, but “you couldn’t totally be certain’’, that there was circumstantial evidence, a rival player complained to him about the size of Essendon players in 2012, and that “apparently’’ the players took thousands of injections.
Even the fair-minded Sheahan was taken aback by Fitzpatrick’s offerings. “His answers did seem to be a bit willy-nilly and indecisive,’’ Sheahan said.
Tim Watson was critical of the former chairman as was Paul Little, who replaced Evans after Evans quit two days after the Herald Sun revealed in 2013 the infamous phone call made by Andrew Demetriou to Evans at an emergency meeting at Evans’ house. It was dubbed the Night Of Crisis.
“Why Mike would come out now with his views on something that can’t be proven one way or the other is beyond me,’’ Little said.
In fact, coaching great Mick Malthouse was the first to the provoke the cancer when, on April 9, he declared in the Herald Sun the flatlining Bombers were still scarred by the scandal which handed “life sentences” to the suspended players.
Fitzpatrick’s comments further opened wounds.
“I thought he was pathetic,’’ former St Kilda coach Grant Thomas said on a podcast with Sheahan and Sam Newman.
Newman said: “He (Fitzpatrick) should be roundly condemned for that.’’
Clearly, the anger and bitterness as a result of the greatest scandal in Australian rules history is back in the headlines.
In the wake of Thompson’s arrest, Hird claimed the club did not fully support the footy department staff, including himself and Thompson, through the investigation and that what the pair went through at the time contributed significantly to their ongoing issues.
On May 10, Thompson, Hird and club favourite Dean Wallis did not attend the 1993 premiership reunion dinner for differing reasons, but those reasons were linked to the drugs saga and its fallout.
Former Bomber Stewart Crameri broke down in a Fox Footy interview on May 16. “For someone to be guilty of something when they’re innocent, it’s just really hard to take,’’ he said.
Former captain Jobe Watson this week opened up on a podcast about how his club was “negligent on multiple levels’’ through 2012.
“Four years of not only my career but my teammates’ careers were absorbed by this, so that makes me sad. I don’t have ill feelings towards the club, but the club didn’t do their job,’’ Watson said.
Despite the angst, there has been some breakthrough.
Hird and AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan, who was the AFL’s negotiator when the AFL was pushing for penalties for Essendon, which included the one-year suspension for Hird, met twice in the past two weeks. That eventuality was previously unthinkable.
They met at a hole-in-wall coffee shop in South Yarra, with AFL general counsel Andrew Dillon, and spoke of Hird’s relationship with the AFL. Still, they will never be friendly.
That night, or early the next day, Hird’s Toorak house was broken into and a computer, a phone and a car stolen.
The outrageousness of events involving firstly Thompson and then Hird also had Thomas wondering if they were somehow linked. That also is unthinkable, but conspiracies have always been undercurrent of this whole drugs affair.
Thompson’s arrest on serious drug charges was the most stunning news and people close to him, who have reconnected with Thompson since his arrest, say he has sought professional help to deal with his mental health issues.
That is separate, of course, to the charges he faces.
His email to Evans came after Hird almost killed himself.
“It’s time to start fighting for the truth for all our sakes, and most importantly for the players’ sake. They deserve to know everything we know about this fiasco. It’s time we all stood up and right the wrong,” Thompson wrote.
“I think it’s time you stepped up to be the man we thought you were.’’
He was referring to Evans’ role with the AFL and with Demetriou, and was fully aware of Hird’s claim that Evans told Hird to “tell the whole truth to ASADA but not the part about what Andrew Demetriou told me”.
The email from Thompson was crucified by Wilson.
“These were the deluded rantings of a man who was the architect of his own downfall,” she said. “(The email) proved to show how completely demented he has been.”
Strong — some would say callous — words to describe a man who had previously admitted he had mental health issues.
This whole saga, running since 2013, will never be fully reconciled and every time it’s back in the headlines, it seems everyone who had a role to play plants their flag to the version they know best. Not most, but best.
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SWSNBN is still pushing the AFL line. WE know Hird met with Gil and the dill but it doesnt mean the AFL is genuine in anything it does. They are still rancid.
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I would like to formally put on the record what a nasty, terrible and callous sub human that SWWBN is.
What a disgraceful person she is…
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May that dragon kick her pinky-toe on large jarrah furniture everyday, until her last day.
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“It’s time to start fighting for the truth for all our sakes, and most importantly for the players’ sake. They deserve to know everything we know about this fiasco. It’s time we all stood up and right the wrong,” Thompson wrote.
Well here you are, Robbo.
About 4 years too late.
Do you reckon you can start making up for it now?
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Apart from funding, AFLPA has been a stepping stone to bigger and better things in the AFL.
Does not do to offend the AFL.
Heffernan was an appointed EFC Board member during and after the saga. He is now on the AFLPA Board.
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Was that a promotion or a demotion for Heffernan from the EFC Board to the AFLPA?
Promotion - next step AFL commission
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I get the tip off to David Evans in the context of Mike Fitzpatrick being handed the reigns by Ron Evans. And I just figured out Gill was earmarked by Ron Evans and has a father in-law with links to Spotless & hence Ron Evans again.
Is there a business/personal link with Caro to Ron Evans?
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Only in the sense that they have both been AFL lackeys. Her father, who brought Richmond to its knees and was censured by the VFL, does not enjoy a reputation of honour in Australian rules circles. There was the sting with Bev Knights. There was the downfall of Knights ( in part caused by Evans).
She plays the female victim, but all she really does is write gossipy stuff and steers clear of ever commenting on womens role in footy. As Bruce would say, she’s special. Special in the sense that she’s largely irrelevant. She’s pretty much playing the role of the token female .
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???
It was evident that someone from the EFC Board was leaking to her. A series of dummy documents was sent to Board members. The one to Bev Knights was reported by Wilson. Bev resigned.
Then, later, there was the Wison report on Hird’s sacking, from which she had to later retract, saying she had it on good authority. Some Board!
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Ings thinks it wrong that British Cycling has formed a partnership with UKAD.
As a former CEO of ASADA, he overlooks the AFL partnership with ASADA
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Incestuous, isn’t it? Old money - one step away from arranged marriages.
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Then there’s WADA and drug companies.
Reedie, WADA President: “Take pharmaceutical companies, for example, with whom the anti-doping movement has strong relations."
This is what I could never understand, well at least until that rat Finnis got gifted a job stkilda. The other thing that upset me was the lack of empathy displayed from current players. This to me clearly shows the polar opposite of how traditional unions are run and the joke of a union That is the aflpa. Love them or loath them this is exactly why strong unions that work for there members are important.
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“We advised that out of the four potential power bases, namely the VFL centralised administration, the clubs, the Government and the Player’s Association, we did not wish to have the Government legislate because we were fearful of Government intrusion, and we had no need to give the Player’s Association any credibility and respectability…we desired to keep them fragmented.
The common thread that seems to be coming through is that in this modern age, unions and associations are inevitable, so if you have one in its infancy you should get hold of it now and mould it to your best interests rather than let it go into an adversary situation where it will become militant and difficult to control.
My instinct is firmly against any recognition or encouragement of a Player’s Association because by doing so you give it strength. However, I could not get one person over here to agree with that concept…”
(Dick) Seddon - VFL Commissioner 1983
From his report on his tour of US sporting administrations.
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The AFLPA is a member of the Australian Athletes Alliance, which in turn is a member of the World Players Association. The WPA recently put out a “Statement of Concerns on the effectiveness and fairness of anti-doping policy”.
Much in that statement is relevant to the Essendon experience. Yet it gets no traction here, including by the AFLPA.
Marsh of the AFLPA commends Dane Beams for speaking out on his mental health issues, but is yet to make any reference to the publicised health effects on Crameri, Hird, Thompson and Jobe arising from the saga.
FIFPRO speaks out against the unfairness of asuspension on a Peruvian soccer player, as did the captain of the Socceroos. No-one is slamming them for that. Time for some courage AFLPA.
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So who nominated Bev for the board originally
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