Sorry Saga - “It’s actually quite funny people thinking they know more than they actually do”

Football Discussion The Sorry Saga
7181

JBomber and others made the point years ago that if the AFL were fighting the pies, Eddie would have put a wall around the club and fought to the end, rather than our mostly compliant approach. I hated the way we capitulated and chose opportunistic surrender rather than sticking to our principles (not that we had many).

There have been numerous ludicrous suggestions on here that the lack of documentation which would enable us to show details of the program is because Big Dave got to them first and deleted all sorts of stuff during a weekend bender at the club. (I added the bender bit for more dramatic affect).

There is ample evidence which I couldn’t be bothered repeating that the supplement program really was poorly documented, and that the missing information regarding where Dank purchased thymosin from is entirely due to Dank (for reasons such as those implicated in Jake’s email) and absolutely nothing to do with any of the other people we hate.

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7182

Would be nice if big Dave came and explained what happened to the members.

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7183

Think I may have posted thus before but my Dad always told me that if I ever got arrested by the Police that I should not answer any questions about anything even if I was innocent.

On that logic, if I was EFC President there would have been no disclosure of anything.

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7184

You don’t know what Dave got up to at Windy Hill.
Given his poor decision making its likely he made decisions on his weekend bender that helped to nearly ruin the club.
It’s also not ludicrous to believe that some documents did not find their way into the investigation, and because of their provenance leave any trail to the source impossible.
By example, a copy of invoice from a dodgy overseas supplier will never materialise.

7185

Except as I understand it no-one at EFC went though the documents first, Ziggy’s marauders in the form of PW or some other audit sleuth was given full run of all files.

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7186

I suppose then Dave went down to Windy Hill for the weekend to work on his abs.

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7187

The AFL/Lukin already had their planned “rogue sports scientist” narrative of which Evans got on board with

The tip off was for a reason

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7188

My position has always been, particularly in business - you only ever admit to anything if you are 100% guilty & you think its your only hope of some form of leniency. It never made any sense to me that on one hand were had some people within the club claiming innocence all while Evans & the board handed over control of our defence to the AFL. The “self reporting”, the ziggy fiasco & general lack of defence were all completely at odds with what Hird & a few others were publicly saying. We would have been far better off had we picked 1 path & at least stuck to it. The internal conflict simply made us more vulnerable & eventually saw every possible scenario go against the club & players.

As I’ve said here before, internal governance is one area I can claim a certain expertise in. As well as a lifetime in private businesses & now a business owner myself I have also had years of experience in auditing business practices & procedures. This is why for mine the governance failures of EFC remain an area I am sceptical of. You can’t simply say a business had no governance, there are ways & means to assess those failures against industry & broader standards. What I would firstly like to see is some evidence of an actual audit being performed. We have some of the biggest sanctions handed out to any business in Australia’s history yet none of the leading auditing companies, some already on the AFL payroll were employed to even review our governance failures - why not? When I audited work practices there were non-compliances issued. This was a very easy way to see what should have been happening, what was happening & what needed to be changed to bring the practice into standard. The only audit we know of is the one EFC apparently initiated through Ziggy who gave us a BS propaganda piece for the AFL. Does anyone really think its reasonable to even allow a company to conduct its own audit while being investigated & then ultimately sanctioned by an external governing body? To put this into context it would be like the banks doing their own internal version of the royal commission & then the Gvt expected to sanction them based on the findings - it makes no sense. At a minimum a genuine external audit should have been done.

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7189

You would think Paul Brasher, an FCA, or one of his associates are keeping a close eye on the clubs Governance policies and framework that was implemented under Little in response to the AFL fraud on the club.

7190

Yes, there are loopholes in the system. The TGA only have so much power in the regulation of medicines/drugs. Other regulatory authorities, which might include the AMA, regulate the medical diagnosis, treatment, issuing of prescriptions, and ability to access experimental drugs.

Compounding Chemists do not have to have a TGA Licence but many do because they can then access the public hospital system.

If a medicine/drug is not registered with the TGA and therefore has not shown evidence of efficacy and safety it is placed on the Schedules List under various categories which include poisons, experimental substances and dangerous chemicals. TB4 is on this List. Patients can access an experimental substance through the TGA Special Access Scheme, provided that (i) a prescription is obtained for the substance and (ii) the doctor provides verifiable evidence that the substance provides clinical benefit for the patient.

The script would provide a strictly limited amount of the substance for the nominated patient only.

Provision of quality assured experimental substances, for research purposes only, do not come from compounding chemists but mainly direct from reputable suppliers, of which there are a few in Melbourne. The integrity of proper research depends on a good quality management system that includes an Approved Suppliers List.

The added step of using a compounding chemist adds unnecessary cost for a process that can be carried out quite simply in the test lab (especially in the case of TB4 where the “compounding” process involves the dissolution of the powder in sterile water).

I agree there will always be unscrupulous people who will derive benefit from loopholes in a system (McDevitt comes to mind).

The point I have been trying to make is that TB4 (even if the players did take it) has no evidence of performance enhancement and by definition, because it is not registered anywhere in the world, has no proof of efficacy or safety,

As I have quoted on Blitz before that statement by ex Director General of WADA, David Howman, at the recent Hall of Fame Seminar, that WADA science is based on a platform of shifting sand says it all.

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7191

Yes, bigallan. I was told the same thing by the TGA when I contacted them. The link for submissions was well hidden within the TGA webpage and could not be easily found. I would contend that 99.99% of the population would never have heard of the Schedules List let alone find a document that required comment on the technical/scientific argument.

I have no doubt that the application for the inclusion of TB4 onto the Schedules List was made by ASADA. The application included the exact wording contained within section 2.4 “catch all” of the pre 2018 WADA Banned List that allegedly included TB4.

The Scheduling decision contained the reasons why TB4 should be and was eventually added to the List. These include limited evidence of efficacy, unregistered anywhere in the world, unsafe and possibly carcinogenic AND used for purpose of performance enhancement. My contention is that this last reason is contradictory to the other reasons.

Anyone can make a submission to the TGA requesting a change to the Scheduling Document.

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7192

I recall that ASADA was at pains to claim TB4 as classified under SO ( not approved for use in any country) as well as S2, because WADA did not have evidence that TB4 would meet at least one of the necessary two criteria ( performance enhancement) for inclusion in the banned list. This was run at the AFL Tribunal and later asserted at one of the Senate hearings by the ASADA lawyer.
ASADA did not reply to the direct question on notice by the Senate Estimates Committee as to the criteria applying to TB4.
And, when Tracey Holmes put the question to a WADA spokesman, he responded that it was decided by their experts, but was confidential to WADA. So, it can be assumed that the WADA Executive Committee ( of which an Australian Minister used to be a member) may not act responsibly, in rubber stamping decisions taken by the likes of Handelsman ( who has been exposed by the AFL Tribunal and CAS for his lack of objectivity).
As the WADA rules provide that anyone subject to WADA cannot contest inclusion of a substance/ method on the banned list, the WADA system is rigged against those engaged in sport.
I hope Brendan Schwab is on to this in his campaign for athlete rights.

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7193

Wow - Agreeing to the AFL/ASADA joint investigation hung the players - All Evans had to do was allow ASADA to investigate and the players follow their legal right in saying ‘No Comment’ - Presto ASADA has no case - I suggest that Evans would have received advice along these lines which he evidently rejected.

7194

No idea if Evans received any advise but he certainly didn’t listen to anything beyond the lies of the AFL promising that all we had to do was sacrifice our innocence & a few employees to save the players (see AFL) from suspension. As I’ve said before I can at least see how early on it would have looked like a good deal to take - trust in the AFL & their magnanimous nature & it will all be fine. What I still cannot abide though is that the AFL throwing us under the bus became patently obvious very quickly & that’s when Evans had the moral crisis - stick with his boys club mates even though they had sold him a lemon or back his club, in particular Hird & fight for justice & integrity. He chose poorly & the club paid a massive price.

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7195

I am pretty sure that PW or some such group did an audit, either for the Zigster or for the Board.

If not, I not see how the Board can claim they have fixed things.

7196
7197

Chip Le Grand (Melbchief)More damn jobs for the boys I suppose.

7198

I doubt very much if this new Anti-Doping Tribunal was in place at the time, and it found players not guilty like the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal, that WADA wouldn’t have appealed - I suspect that WADA would have appealed no matter what Anti-Doping Tribunal was convened in Australia - Think the journalist has taken liberties in suggesting the final outcome of the EFC 34 would have played out differently.

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7199

Maybe he is just putting it out there that they were unfairly treated.

That is a pretty novel idea for the MSM to consider.

7200

Yes, how could the government legally prevent WADA - a private company incorporated in Switzerland, headquarters in Montreal - from right of recourse to CAS?
In fact, it could serve to extend WADA and CAS powers in regard to evidence and the compelling of witnesses. There are implications for the Australian legal system, given that ASADA lost a court case to subpoena witnesses to the AFL Tribunal. Those witnesses refused to appear on the grounds of self incrimination.
There are also question marks over the proposal to give the AFP greater powers of international information sharing. The AFP has hardly covered itself in glory in that regard with the Bali 9 and the soccer player.
There is a long way to go on this , but we should be wary.

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