Thanks for the clarification.
I would be interested to know whether Peter Gordon was paid for his services in this affair and if so, how any such payment would be compatible with Article 4 of the AFL Memorandum of Association.
Article 5 of the Memorandum confers powers on the Attorney General in that regard.
As I understand it AFL members ( Life Members and appointees, such as Club Presidents/ delegates) have the right to inspect the records of income and expenditure.
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Hirdy must be a life member.
Not sure of that. 300 gamers automatically qualify, but don’t think Brownlow medallists do.
On the other hand, Tanner is standing for re-election to the Essendon Board, might be interested in responding to EFC members requests.
IIRC Mick Warner referred to the Gordon retainer as “a bizarre twist”. Perhaps he knows something we don’t.
Fitzpatrick is now a Life Member. Wonder if the AFL has any dealings, such as shares, with his companies
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Correction. Tanner is standing for election to the EFC Board for the first time. Simon Madden, an EFC Board member is an Afl Life Menmber.
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I wish the EFC administration would make an “effort, show fight” and try to leave “no stone unturned” to clear the names and reputations of the 34+2.
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In fogdog’s words, there seems to be a lot of “complacency and mediocrity at its finest” shown by the people who should be doing that (as well as clearing the club’s reputation).
Sadly, no-one has worked more boldly to do more for the 34+2 than a Carlton supporter.
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And of course, there’s the effort of a Swan’s supporter. It would be interesting if Jackson & Bruce wrote books of their findings and their experiences with the authorities that run the game, sport and the country.
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Sharpe omitted a few facts in that interview.
As to Whitfield, the AFL suspended him for 6 months and IIRC, Allen and Lambert were outed for a year each.
On the illicit drugs issue, ASADA seems to want to turn itself into an arm of the AFP. ASADA’s current role is limited to WADA banned drugs and the 3 strikes whereabouts rule.
As to empowering ASADA to publicly correct social media and MSM comments, has Sharpe ever considered that responsiveness to FOI requests might assist in better informing the media and the general public as to the facts? ASADA is less than transparent in claiming dubious FOI exemptions. It will always be suspect for so long as it maintains such behaviour and there can be little trust in what it purports to represent as the facts.
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thats an extraordinarily cheap shot on your part.
Well said Stabby. This is the Board led by David Evans that rolled over and asked Demetriou to tickle their tummys. This is the club that came out and said the players were innocent but nevertheless meekly accepted the CAS decision and the ASADA/WADA persecution of the players. This is the club that allowed the joint investigation which was entered into by ASADA and the AFL so ASADA could use the AFL’s coercive powers to strip the players of the right to remain silent. Remember the right to remain silent is an explicit part of the ASADA Act. I could go on but the point is the players were abandoned by the club and remain abandoned. The current Chairman is asking us 'to move on’. Good luck with that Lindsay! I for one will not rest until the truth comes out.
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You do realise that was in response to the CEO saying words to the effect that the club will try their hardest to win a premiership?
wouldn’t it have never happened if they actually did their job?
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THiS
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On the subject of poor ASADA not being able to defend themselves as described in the Australian and the ABC, Bruce is setting the story straight.
Guys
I have always believed that clean athletes deserved to be protected from dirty athletes and that clean athletes deserve to be protected from dirty organisations such as the AFL, ASADA, WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Yesterday’s article by the ABC’s Mary Gearin suggests that ASADA has not learnt anything from its corrupt behaviour during the Essendon saga and therefore it will remain a dirty organisation.
An alcoholic will never begin his recovery until he admits that he is an alcoholic. Similarly, ASADA will not recover its standing until it admits that it was a dirty and corrupted organisation during the Essendon saga. Sadly, quotes from ASADA’s CEO David Sharpe in Gearin’s article indicate that he is reading from the Ben McDevitt playbook.
Sharpe’s desire to move on will never be achieved until ASADA admits it corrupted the Essendon investigation and admits that the 34 Essendon players were wrongly convicted.
The following are just a few examples of dirty and/or corrupt behaviour taken from my 103-page critique of ASADA’s corrupt behaviour. Although the Ombudsman requested ASADA respond to my allegations in the 103-page critique, ASADA has failed to do so.
Over to you Mr Sharpe. Demolish me or admit you have to rebuild your dirty organisation from scratch.
Bruce Francis
AUSTRALIAN SPORTS ANTI-DOPING AUTHORITY (ASADA)
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ASADA and the AFL agreed on 1 February 2013 to investigate the alleged administering of banned substances to Essendon players. -
ASADA perpetuated the Demetriou/McLachlan/David Evans lie (AFL/Essendon board) lie that Essendon self-reported on 5 February 2013. ASADA, the AFL and Essendon conspired to agree that Essendon self-reported in the hope that it would help reduce the penalty. -
On 9 February 2013, four days before the joint AFL/ASDA investigation commenced, ASADA, the Gillard Government, the AFL and Essendon board (through chairman David Evans and CEO Ian Robson) conspired to find the players innocent; fine the Essendon club; and hold the support staff responsible. Support staff was code for James Hird. Richard Eccles, representing Prime Minister Julie Gillard, asked McLachlan: “What are you after?” ASADA CEO Aurora Andruska’s note book records McLachlan’s response: “Come to arrangement. Players found to be innocent. This is the outcome. Sanctions against Essendon [club but not against the board]. [The Essendon club] held responsible. Hold individuals accountable.” Andruska also recorded that Eccles said “the prime minister wanted it to end.” Ironically, Eccles breached the ASADA Act by attending the meeting and scores of other meetings. -
The government, AFL and Essendon board and senior ASADA staff, excluding Andruska, agreed to find the players not guilty on the spurious grounds of “no fault”. That option wasn’t available and it was a clear breach of WADA rules to find the players not guilty. ASADA senior counsel of 20 years standing John Marshall QC resigned over this agreement to breach the WADA rule. -
ASADA acted corruptly in that it changed evidence. Essendon CEO Ian Robson was asked by ASADA investigators to outline the reporting protocols in the football department. Robson said Stephen Dank reported to high performance manager Dean Robinson and Dean Robinson reported to general manager football operations Paul Hamilton. An ASADA staff member changed Robson’s evidence by adding [and James Hird] in square brackets. This enabled ASADA and the AFL to create a corrupt case against Hird that he had failed to fulfil his governance responsibilities. This chicanery undoubtedly contributed to Hird’s suicide attempt. -
ASADA made an art form of using square brackets to build its case. It enabled ASADA to testify in its own investigation. Inter alia, the interim report says: “In a 12 January 2012 email Mr Charter asked Dank to check the document to ensure his concurrence with the protocols suggested ‘so we can make [the Thymosin Beta-4] up accordingly.” My Comment – Note the square brackets around [the Thymosin Beta-4]. Charter didn’t say ‘the Thymosin Beta-4’. ASADA added those words in a dishonest attempt to create a case that the players were administered Thymosin Beta-4 and not the permitted Thymomodulin. -
During the investigation, the players were asked what substances they had been administered. ASADA created a table from the players’ responses, which it labelled ‘Admitted use of substances by players’. Dustin Fletcher and Ben Howlett both denied taking AOD-9604, but ASADA changed their evidence and said that they both admitted to using AOD-9604. -
ASADA fabricated evidence. Although some players couldn’t remember what substances that they had been administered, on numerous occasions ASADA recorded responses such as “rings a bell”, “possibly”, “maybe” as a definite yes. Furthermore, ASADA made so many changes to Shane Charter and Nima Alavi’s witness statements, both refused to sign the re-typed statements. The statement ASADA wanted Alavi to sign was laced with references to Thymosin Beta-4. Alavi did not know what variety of Thymosin he compounded. He told ASADA that he didn’t know what he compounded but that didn’t stop ASADA from inserting Thymosin Beta-4 into his statement. -
On 15 July 2013, lead ASADA investigator John Nolan asked Abraham Haddad of the AFL to prepare an injections table based on assumptions and a formula. When given the figures, Nolan said: “Not really what we are looking for … If we add the multi-vitamin aspect, then it is a little more convincing.” (my emphasis). Nothing could be clearer, ASADA fabricated the figures when its outrageous assumptions and dubious formulae didn’t deliver the horror picture it was looking for. -
ASADA omitted evidence. James Hird’s job description and the Essendon organisation structure proved that Hird was on a different branch of the organisation structure from the football department and, clearly, in accordance with the Victorian OH&S Act, had no power to interfere in the football department. ASADA omitted to mention that Essendon had a matrix organisation structure, and didn’t include Hird’s job description, Essendon organisation chart or the relevant clauses of the Victorian OH&S Act in the evidence. -
ASADA tabled a newspaper article in which Dank allegedly admitted to using Thymosin Beta-4, but omitted tabling articles in which Dank denied using Thymosin Beta-4. Inter alia, one article claimed that Dank testified under oath before the ACC, under threat of a gaol sentence for perjury, that he didn’t administer Thymosin Beta-4 to the players. -
During his interview with ASADA on 6 May 2013, Essendon captain was asked what substances he was administered. ASADA’s interim report states that Watson admitted to being administered AOD-9604, Colostrum, Cerebrolysin, Vitamins B & C and an amino acid. Unforgivably, and in my view, ASADA corruptly did not record that Watson also admitted to being administered Thymosin. Given that ASADA and, subsequently, WADA, claimed that Thymosin was the generic name for Thymosin Beta-4, and given ASADA, and subsequently, WADA, claimed that Thymosin Beta-4 was the only banned substance that the players were administered, it is incomprehensible that ASADA did not record Watson admitting to being administered Thymosin. -
What then could be the explanation for ASADA deliberately omitting Watson’s admission that he was administered Thymosin? Clearly, the reason was that of the nine players who admitted to being administered Thymosin, Watson gave the most detailed response to the ASADA investigators to the conversation that he (Watson) had with Stephen Dank when he was administered Thymosin. Watson’s testimony, which follows, was overwhelming proof that he was administered the WADA permitted Thymosin Alpha-1 or WADA permitted Thymomodulin.
Transcript
Question: “One of the forms also was headed or related to Thymosin. Did you know what Thymosin was?”
Watson: “No. I asked Stephen about it, and he said to me that there were two types of Thymosin” …
Question: “So you spoke to Stephen Dank after you’d signed the form about Thymosin. What did he say?”
Watson: “He said there were two kinds, there was a good and a bad and that we would be taking the good one.”
Question: “Was this in the context, or did he relate it to treatment of AIDS patients?”
Watson: “He talked about it for recovery purposes, but whether or not I can be certain about when I learnt about the AIDS patients and whether that helped AIDS patients at that time, I can’t recall.”
Question: “At some stage did he discuss Thymosin in the context of the treatment of AIDS patients, whether it was then or later?”
Watson: “Yeah.”
Question: “So what he told you in answer to your enquiry about Thymosin was that there was a good and a bad, meaning one was banned and one was permitted?”
Watson: “Yes.”
Question: “And he told you that you are getting the good one?”
Watson: “That part of the program would be the good one, yeah”
Thymosin Alpha-1 and Thymomodulin help build the immune system, which is why it is used by AIDS patients. Dank claimed he used it because it helped ward-off, and helped the recovery from colds and flu, which can destroy football teams.
ASADA obviously omitted Watson’s evidence from the interim report because it destroyed ASADA’s case that the players were administered Thymosin Beta-4.
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ASADA accepted constant political interference. It not only allowed a government minister and public servants to attend and contribute in numerous meetings, but it shared information with the minister and public servants, which was a blatant breach of the NAD Scheme provisions. -
ASADA created cases against Essendon and support staff at the behest of the AFL. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou and deputy chief executive Gillon McLachlan both demanded certain information be included in ASADA’s interim report and both demanded information be excluded. AFL integrity manager Brett Clothier made numerous demands about what should be in the interim report. In particular, he demanded that ASADA included detail about the environment at Essendon. -
ASADA accepted evidence which it knew to be untrue. On 17 July 2013, Clothier sent ASADA investigators an email in which he claimed that he warned James Hird 713 days earlier that all peptides were banned. As all peptides are still not banned, and as Clothier and the ASADA investigators knew on 17 July 2013 that all peptides were not banned, ASADA was at best guilty of gross misconduct in accepting Clothier’s email as evidence. -
On 3 July 2012, ASADA’s Dr Stephen Watt sent an email to WADA in which he stated Thymosin was Thymomodulin. ASADA failed to table this crucial email in discovery. -
ASADA testified in its own investigation on countless occasions. Inter alia, four pages into the interim report, ASADA stated (testified) that Thymosin was the [generic name for the] banned substance Thymosin Beta-4. ASADA did not table any evidence in the 434-page interim report to support this emphatic statement. -
Jobe Watson told the ASADA investigators that he was administered AOD-9604. Bizarrely, in what amounts to ASADA testifying in its own investigation, the investigators told Watson that “it was unlikely that it was AOD-9604”. -
ASADA told the players that the amino acid that they were administered was sourced from Mexico and that it could cause birth defects. Clearly, ASADA was testifying in its own investigation. And it was wrong. The amino acid was purchased in America. -
ASADA’s duplicity and inconsistency knew no bounds. ASADA and WADA argued that because the players consented on 8 February 2012 to being administered Thymosin, they therefore must have been administered Thymosin. However, although the players consented to being administered AOD-9604, ASADA and WADA believed only a few players may have been administered AOD-9604. ASADA and WADA put Colostrum in the same boat as AOD-9604. -
On 3 November 2014, ASADA misled the Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel (ADRVP) into issuing Anti-Doping Rule violations against 34 Essendon players. ASADA had to create the impression that it was possible that Thymosin was Thymosin Beta-4. It made no such attempt. ASADA also had to create the impression that it was possible that 34 players were administered Thymosin. That was impossible for two reasons. ASADA never challenged the evidence that only eight players were administered Thymosin. Two, ASADA had to produce evidence to the ADRVP that it was possible that the 34 players were administered Thymosin. ASADA claims that each player’s file contained about 300 pages. Clearly, it was impossible for ASADA to present the 300 pages in each players file (10,000 pages in total) in one day. The ADRVP findings were obviously a farce. The matter should never have gone further than the ADRVP. -
Although the ASADA interim report (page 32) stated that: “The investigation sought to establish whether players and support persons from the Essendon FC used substances or engaged in methods prohibited by WADA and the AFL’s Anti-Doping Code,” it is clear that a second ‘de-facto investigation’ was set up by stealth and came to run parallel with it. The first investigation, whose objective was well publicised, was supposed to ascertain whether the Essendon players had been administered banned substances. As it transpired, the second, unannounced investigation of governance failures - outside the purview of ASADA - was run by the same investigators, and without informing those questioned of the new intention. It is difficult to believe that this covert investigation was established for any reason other than to deliver the government and the AFL a major public face – James Hird. -
ASADA investigators made judgements about human resource and governance issue without being qualified to do so -
The interim report was the brief of evidence used against the Essendon club and James Hird for governance failures, despite governance issues being outside the ASADA Act -
ASADA gave the AFL access to all witness statements, which enabled it to leak confidential information selectively that influenced public opinion enormously. -
ASADA gave AFL integrity manager Brett Clothier access to all the evidence and then unbelievably accepted an email out of the blue (sent at 12.33pm on 17 July 2013) from him as evidence. Clothier’s evidence purported to describe the basic thrust of a meeting held 713 days before on 5 August 2011 between Clothier, Essendon general manager football operations Paul Hamilton, football manager Danny Corcoran, coach James Hird and ASADA representative Paul Roland -
Clothier wasn’t questioned about his evidence, which contradicted the evidence of James Hird, Danny Corcoran and ASADA’s Paul Roland. Although Clothier’s email was very damaging to Hird, neither Hird, nor Hamilton, nor Corcoran nor Roland was questioned about Clothier’s damaging comments. -
ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt misled the Parliament on 16 occasions during his 3 March 2016 Senate Estimates hearing appearance. Inter alia, an FOI request proved that McDevitt corruptly inserted words into a 23 August 2011 text message from Dank to Robinson. -
Furthermore, although at his Senate appearance McDevitt referred to over a 100 emails and texts to support his case that Dank used Thymosin Beta-4, in responding to an FOI request, ASADA said no such texts exist. -
On 12 January 2016, ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt was interviewed on Triple M radio in Melbourne. McDevitt said, and I quote: “Well that’s exactly right Seb, and that was, look, just a part of the evidence that was put before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Tribunal, and basically, yeah, that’s right, so when our testers go out to test athletes they have a standard pro forma that they fill out and the athlete is asked to declare anything that they have had, whether it be panadol, buprofen, vitamins, whatever, and you know as I said, in 30 testing missions these players were approached on each occasion they were asked to declare any substances that they have had and all we got was one player in that entire period which was one injection which was for Vitamin B, so you know I mean quite frankly, if they felt that the substances that they were taking were legal and were ok, then why wouldn’t they just declare them. Mr McDevitt and the CAS panel were wrong. In 2011 and 2012 the players were not required what substances they had been administered. Mr McDevitt was lying (still) when he said only one player declared anything.Mr McDevitt revealed confidential information by quoting from the CAS transcript and by revealing confidential doping control information. Mr McDevitt was an entrusted person under the NAD Scheme. Clause 71 of the Act under the heading: Protection of NAD scheme personal information states:
(1) A person commits an offence if: (a) the person is or was an entrusted person; and (b) when the person was an entrusted person, the person obtained NAD scheme personal information; and (c) the person discloses the information to someone else.
The penalty for breaching clause 71 is Imprisonment for 2 years.
Is it any wonder ASADA wants to move on
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Sharpe has an article in the Australian ( behind paywall). Seems he is on the campaign trail for wider ASADA powers. How would that correct previous ASADA injustices?
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Article from the Australian
ASADA accepts athletes can inadvertenly dope and switches focus to drug suppliers
[![ASADA chief executive David Sharpe said Australia needed to tackle the problem of doping closer to the source. Picture: Gary Ramage|650x365]
· CHIP LE GRAND
VICTORIAN CHIEF REPORTER
!
A revamped Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority will target importers, traffickers and Chinese manufacturers of performance-enhancing drugs while adopting greater flexibility towards athletes who inadvertently dope.
ASADA chief executive David Sharpe said Australia needed to tackle the problem of doping closer to the source of illegally imported steroids, peptides and blood boosters, and protect the health of athletes targeted by unethical personal trainers, physios and organised crime.
He signalled a softening of ASADA’s previous hardline attitude towards athletes who took banned substances without intending to cheat.
“It is a different time for ASADA,’’ Mr Sharpe told The Australian . “People need to understand we are not here with a big stick; we are here to make sure you don’t cross the line and are not exposed to health issues.
“We are not going to take you out of sport for two years if you test positive inadvertently or have made an error of judgment or didn’t have someone to ask.’’
This new approach would have resulted in substantially different outcomes for two young AFL footballers, Lachlan Keefe and Josh Thomas, who each accepted two-year bans from ASADA after ingesting Clenbuterol, a banned anabolic agent, while using cocaine out of competition.
Mr Sharpe, a 20-year veteran of the Australian Federal Police who co-ordinated Australia’s joint counter-terrorism teams, said ASADA would seek to collaborate with the AFP and Chinese authorities to disrupt the flow of cheap performance-enhancing drugs onto the Australia market.
He cited Taskforce Blaze, a Guangzhou-based partnership between the AFP and China’s National Narcotics Control Commission, credited with seizing 13 tonnes of narcotics and precursor chemicals headed for Australia, as a potential model for ASADA.
“If we look at where some of these substances are coming from, including some which aren’t even tested on humans and shouldn’t be in this country, we need to really up the ante and work with Border Force and the AFP and Chinese authorities,’’ he said.
“Taskforce Blaze is a good example of the AFP working in partnership with the Chinese to target methamphetamine manufacturing. That would be a perfect model for ASADA. A lot of these products are manufactured legally in China and imported illegally into Australia. If we can work with them and highlight that issue, we are a long way down the path to preventing some of these substances coming into the country.’’
ASADA estimates one quarter of all performance-enhancing drugs imported to Australia are manufactured in China. The manufacturers include reputable labs which produce peptides for medical and scientific research.
Steroids, growth hormone releasing peptides and other substances commonly used to cheat in sport are listed as schedule 4 poisons by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. They can only be imported for personal use with a scrip from an Australian doctor.
An integrity review of Australian sport by corruption-busting barrister James Wood QC found ASADA was under-resourced, lacked investigative powers and in need of “significant reform’’ to meet future doping challenges.
It recommended establishing stronger, intelligence-sharing links with other law enforcement agencies, a strengthening of its disclosure regime by removing the privilege against self-incrimination when anyone is questioned by ASADA and boosting the penalties for refusal to supply documents requested by the agency. Mr Sharpe said ASADA had already asked the federal government to make the necessary legislative changes.
The Wood review also raised concerns about the financial sustainability of ASADA’s testing mission, currently compromised by the high costs of the WADA-accredited Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory, which the government requires ASADA to use for sample analysis.
High lab costs associated with ASADA’s tests have prompted international sports federations to bypass ASADA and use cheaper, private testing agencies for sports competitions staged in Australia. ASADA does not test at the Australian Open tennis tournament, the Tour Down Under cycle race and other events, creating a blind spot in its intelligence gathering.
Mr Sharpe supported a Wood recommendation for the government to either address the local lab costs or allow ASADA to use cheaper, overseas labs. He also wants ASADA to be provided information from illicit drug testing programs run by professional sports such as the AFL, NRL, Cricket Australia and Tennis Australia — another Wood recommendation. “Are there hot spots we need to focus on in our education program?’’ Mr Sharpe said. “Is there a particular club or environment that has a problem? Is there a particular club or environment that has been infiltrated by people who want to exploit vulnerabilities in athletes?’’
Since Operation Cobia, a protracted and contentious investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs at Cronulla in the NRL and Essendon, Melbourne and the Gold Coast Suns in the AFL, ASADA has undergone a dramatic overhaul of staff, budget and purpose.
ASADA’s new chief scientist, Naomi Speers, was a forensic expert with the AFP. Field testers who previously had difficulty engaging with athletes have been replaced. The education program is focused on younger athletes yet to make the elite grade and the testing program will be more targeted.
ASADA conducted nearly 6000 drug tests in 2016-17. Of those, 0.6 per cent returned positive results. The global average, as reported by WADA, is 1.4 per cent.
“Either we are the cleanest country in the world or we need to be more effective in our intelligence-led testing,’’ Mr Sharpe said.
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As to the exercise of the ASADA CEO discretionary authority to refer a case to the ADRVP, what guranteees will Sharpe give that the CEO will not use that authority in the future to do dirty deals with the likes of the AFL?
Would like to hear from him as to the machinery to address ASADA integrity.
Would also like to hear from him in regard to his views on transparency of processes, including in regard to FOI.
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Apologies if this has already been posted. Does anyone know how to contact this guy. I want to put him straight on a few things like proof of guilt, doctored evidence and ruining the lives of 34 innocent men. Also question his definition of integrity.
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Haven’t read the article but is poor little Benny a bit miffed that he is being held accountable…aww diddums… Fkr!
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